This paper presents a strategic model of incentives for care and litigation under asymmetric information and self-serving bias, and studies the effects of caps on non-economic damages. We contribute to the theoretical law and economics literature by providing the first assessment of the effects...

This paper presents a strategic model of incentives for care and litigation under asymmetric information and self-serving bias, and studies the effects of damage caps. We contribute to the behavioral economics literature by generalizing the perfect Bayesian equilibrium concept to environments...

We investigate the effect of the split-award tort reform, where the state takes a share of the plaintiff's punitive damage award, on the firm's level of care, the likelihood of trial, and the social costs of accidents. A decrease in the plaintiff's share of the punitive damage award reduces the...

Punitive damage awards have been widely criticized for generating a plaintiff’s windfall (i.e., a payment in excess of the costs of pursuing the punitive claim), which promotes unnecessary litigation, the escalation of liability insurance premiums and over-deterrence. In an attempt to...

This article presents a strategic model of liability and litigation under court errors. Our framework allows for endogenous choice of level of care and endogenous likelihood of filing and disputes. We derive sufficient conditions for a unique universally divine mixed-strategy perfect Bayesian...