For contemporary legal theory, law is essentially an interpretative and hermeneutic practice (Ackerman (1991), Horwitz (1992)). A straightforward consequence is that legal disputes between parties are motivated by their divergent interpretations regarding what law says on their case. This point...

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 pretrial...

We show that whatever the representation of criminals' preferences under risk, the assumption according to which they are strongly risk averse individuals is not consistent with the available observations establishing that criminals are more sensitive to shifts in the probability of sanction...

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...

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...