We experimentally study the effects of the split-award tort reform, where the state takes a share of the plaintiff's punitive damage award, on litigants' beliefs and bargaining outcomes. In addition, we study the formation of litigants' beliefs in a strategic environment. Our results provide...

The paper addresses the issue of the impact of asymmetric information on risk aversion of litigant parties in a model à la Bebchuk. First we study the case where the plaintif is the informed party, and characterize the equilibrium with and without a pretrial negociation round. Then, we focuse...

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...

For psychologists, bounded rationality reflects the presence of cognitive dissonance and/or inconsistency, revealing that people use heuristics (Tversky and Kahneman (1974)) rather than sophisticated processes for the assessment of their beliefs. Recent research analyzing litigations and...

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...

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...

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...

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...