The paper investigates the effect of local economic conditions on crime. The study focuses on Italy’s local labor markets and analyzes the short-term response of crime to the severe slump of 2007-2009. It shows that the downturn led to a significant increase in economic-related offenses that...

We study a contracting model with unforeseen contingencies in which the court is an active player. Ex-ante, the contracting parties cannot include the risky unforeseen contingencies in the contract they draw up. Ex-post the court observes whether an unforeseen contingency occurred, and decides...

This is the first of the country-specific European Social Survey topline results reports. Focusing on UK data from the Round 5 module entitled ‘trust in justice,' we link people’s perceptions of police legitimacy to their compliance with the law and their willingness to cooperate with the...

We embed a simple contracting model with ex-ante investments in which there is scope for Court intervention in a full-blown open-ended dynamic setting. The underlying preferences of both Courts and contracting parties are fully forward looking and unbiased. Our point of departure is instead the...

We find an economic rationale for the common sense answer to the question in our title — courts should not always enforce what the contracting parties write. We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. An active court can improve on the outcome...

We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. The model we analyze is the same as in Anderlini, Felli, and Postlewaite (2006). An active court can improve on the outcome that the parties would achieve without it. The institutional role of the court is...

Cumulative innovation is central to economic growth. Do patent rights facilitate or impede such follow-on innovation? This paper studies the effect of removing patent protection through court invalidation on the subsequent research related to the focal patent, as measured by later citations. We...

We study how fragmentation of patent rights (‘patent thickets’) and the formation of the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affected the duration of patent disputes, and thus the speed of technology diffusion through licensing. We develop a model of patent litigation which...

We study the determinants of patent suits and their outcomes over the period 1978- 1999 by linking detailed information from the U.S. patent office, the federal court system, and industry sources. The probability of being involved in a suit is heterogeneous, being much higher for valuable...

The purpose of this article, and of its earlier companion article (Part (1) Rule-making, 12 European Business Organization Law Review (2011) p. 41), is to examine the implications of the new European Securities and Markets Authority which was established in January 2011. In the wake of the...