Recent revisionist accounts of corporate governance in both business history and finance are challenging the tradition narrative, associated with Berle and Means (1932) and Alfred Chandler (1977), in which the American model of diffuse ownership and coherent diversification is both an inevitable...

Greater trial delay is commonly associated with decreasing demand for trials, thereby bringing about an equilibrium for a given trial capacity. This note highlights that – in contrast to this premise – trial delay may in fact increase trial demand. Such an outcome is established for a...

Under the standard economic model of torts, punitive damages correct for imperfect detection. Incorporating litigation costs into the model provides a justification for punitive damage caps. At the optimum, caps balance deterrence against the cost of litigation. Empirical testing of the model is...

Law and economics scholars argue that the common law evolves toward efficiency. Invisible hand theories suggest that the law is primarily driven by a selection process whereby inefficient laws are litigated more frequently than efficient laws, and hence are more likely to be overturned. But the...

We develop a new method for calculating reliable discounts for lack of marketability (DLOMs) for minority family limited partnership (FLP) interests, which we term the Managed Asset Portfolio Market (MAPM) Analysis. DLOMs typically are the largest valuation adjustment in, and often the most...

This paper compares the all-or-nothing and proportionate damage rules for allocating damages in tort cases under evidentiary uncertainty. The focus is on how the two rules affect litigation expenditures by plaintiffs and defendants. The results of simulation experiments show that the expected...

The literature on frivolous lawsuits has focused on litigation costs and the optimal settlement-trial decision of defendants, but has not examined how they affect the decisions of potential injurers. This paper asks whether there are circumstances under which frivolous suits might actually...

Asset forfeiture laws allow the seizure of assets used in the commission of a crime. This paper examines the impact of such laws on deterrence by incorporating the possibility of asset forfeiture into the standard economic model of crime. When punishment is by a fine that can be optimally...

Previous literature on frivolous lawsuits has focused on litigation costs and the optimal settlement-trial decision of defendants, but has not examined how they affect deterrence. This paper examines whether there are circumstances under which frivolous suits might actually increase deterrence,...

This paper integrates the literatures on the social value of lawsuits, the evolution of the law, and judicial preferences to evaluate the hypothesis that the law evolves toward efficiency. The setting is a simple accident model with costly litigation where the efficient law minimizes the sum of...