Behavioral economics has been a growing force in many fields of applied economics, including public economics, labor economics, health economics, and law and economics. This paper describes and assesses the current state of behavioral law and economics. Law and economics had a critical (though...

In this paper, we conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of better judicial enforcement on the probability of being credit rationed, loan size, and the probability of bankruptcy using household-level data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers, conducted by the Institute for Research...

In July of 1826, several prominent Wall Street firms abruptly went bankrupt, amid scandalous revelations of fraudulent financial practices by their management. Although mostly forgotten today, these events represented a watershed in the early development of the corporation laws and investor...

During the Progressive Era at the beginning of the 20th century, the United States replaced litigation by regulation as the principal mechanism of social control of business. To explain why this happened, we present a model of choice of law enforcement strategy between litigation and regulation...

"Why do some countries have growth-enhancing financial systems, while others do not? Why have some countries developed the necessary investor protection laws and contract-enforcement mechanisms to support financial institutions and markets, while others have not? This paper reviews existing...

We develop a model of the plaintiff's decision to file a law suit that has implications for how differences between the federal government and private litigants and litigation translate into differences in trial rates and plaintiff win rates at trial. Our case selection model generates a set of...

This article surveys the theory of the public enforcement of law -- the use of public agents (inspectors, tax auditors, police, prosecutors) to detect and to sanction violators of legal rules. We first present the basic elements of the theory, focusing on the probability of imposition of...

This is a survey of the field of economic analysis of law, focusing on the work of economists. The survey covers the three central areas of civil law liability for accidents (tort law), property law, and contracts as well as the litigation process and public enforcement of law

This paper analyses data on union and employer rankings of different panels of arbitrators in an actual arbitration system. A random utility model of bargainer preferences is developed and estimated. The estimates indicate that unions and employers have similar preferences, in favor of lawyers,...

One of the principal results in the economic theory of liability is that, assuming litigation is costless, the rule of strict liability with compensatory damages leads the injurer to choose the socially appropriate level of care. This paper reexamines this result when litigation is costly. It is...