In rent-seeking contests, players are seldom identical to one another. In this chapter, we examine the rent-seeking literature that explores the effects of specific forms of asymmetry between contestants. We consider Tullock’s rent-seeking contests involving two players who differ in strength...

This paper presents a general rent-seeking model in which participants decide on entry before choosing their levels of efforts. The conventional wisdom in the rent-seeking literature suggests that the rent dissipation increases with the number of potential participants and with their pro-...

Shavell (1980) established that all existing tort regimes fail to incentivize optimal activity levels. The bearer of residual loss adopts a socially optimal activity level, however the non-bearer of residual loss will adopt an excessive level of activity. In this paper, we explore alternative...

We present a dynamic model of noncontractual litigation in which the parties' decision whether to litigate depends on information produced by courts and, vice versa, the courts' involvement in the lawmaking process depends on the cases proposed by the parties. Thereby, we integrate in one model...

There is extensive literature on whether courts or legislators produce efficient rules, but which of them produces rules efficiently? Is there an optimal mix of litigation and legislation? The law is inevitably subject to a certain degree of uncertainty ex ante; uncertainty makes the outcomes of...

In this paper, we study the effects and desirability of legal rules that allow the sharing of an accident loss between a non-negligent injurer and his non-negligent victim. In order to identify the virtues and limits of loss-sharing rules, we begin by considering the effect of a loss-sharing...

In rent-seeking contests, players are seldom identical to one another. In this chapter, we examine the rent-seeking literature that explores the effects of specific forms of asymmetry between contestants. We consider Tullock's rent-seeking contests involving two players who differ in strength...

This paper presents a general rent-seeking model in which participants decide on entry before choosing their levels of efforts. The conventional wisdom in the rent-seeking literature suggests that the rent dissipation increases with the number of potential participants and with their...

We study the relations between compensation schemes and risk aversion of managers in a strategic framework. We first show that the use of relative performance evaluation (RPE) in compensation contracts reduces the equilibrium profits of Cournot firms if managers are not too risk averse. Second,...