This paper elaborates on a basic model of mass tort litigation, highlighting the existence of positive informational externalities afforded by the discovery process (as a general technology of production of evidences) in order to study when a class action is formed, or when a sequence of...

In this paper, we modelize a criminal organization as an agency where the Principal and the Agent have different sensibilities towards the risk of arrestation and punishment, and at the same time have different skills with respect to general organization tasks, crime realization or detection...

When several plaintiffs file individually a lawsuit against the same tortfeasor, the resolution of the various cases through repeated trials produces positive informational externalities, which benefit to the later plaintiffs (since there exist precedents, jurisprudence...). Thus, the first...

Most international jurisdictions have sought to broaden their definition of a trade mark following the Qualitex v Jacobson Products (Qualitex Case)2. In Australia, the Trade Marks Act (Cth) 1995 was introduced to recognise that colors, scents, shapes and sounds could be registered as a trade...

This paper examines the positions of Coase and Pigou in regard to the problem of external effects (externalities). Assessing their two most important works, it appears that Coase has a more relevant preference for an evaluation of total efficiency, while Pigou, with some exceptions, is convinced...

We study the characteristics of optimal levels of care and distribution of risk in a extended unilateral accident model, where 1/ parties are Rank Dependant Expected Utility maximizers, which allows us to capture two important behavioral characteristics in risk, both pessimism (probability...

On October 1, 2003, Judge Colleen Koller-Kotellay issued a ruling finding there was insufficient evidence to decisively conclude that the name “Redskins” was disparaging to “American Indians” (Harjo v. Pro-Football, Inc., 2003). This judgment overturned a 1999 United States Patent and...

We propose a new climate policy that is efficient, robust, and asks for payments proportional to realized climate damage. In each period, countries are made liable for their share of the responsibility in the current damage. Efficiency follows from countries' anticipations of climate change,...

The scope of this paper is to demonstrate that only in case of unilateral accident a party will take efficient level of activity. In all cases of bilateral accidents there will be aòwaus a party that will take a too high level of activity. But the reason that I try to demonstrate in this work...

In this paper I want to demonstrate that it is not possible, with traditional liability rules, to have one party that takes an efficient level of precaution. Both parties, whaever is the rule, take an excessive level of precaution. The problem is that, when we try to calculate the costs of an...