We investigate optimal capital requirements in a model in which banks decide on their investment in credit scoring systems. Our main result is that regulators should encourage sophisticated banks to keep their asset portfolios safe, while assets with high systematic risk should be concentrated...

Firms will exert too little care due to a limited liability effect if damages are likely to exceed their equity. This is particularly important for environmental and product liability and motivates the current discussion about mandatory insurance and extending liability to creditors. We model...

We propose a simple liability rule when several agents are jointly responsible for monitoring a risky economic activity or certifying its security. Examples are safety controls for drugs or technical systems, environmental liability, or air safety accidents. The agents have private knowledge of...

The economic analysis of tort law is extended to multi-party accidents with unobservable actions. Due to the requirement of no punitive damages, the problem resembles a team production problem. It is shown that asymmetry in the agents' impact on the stochastic damage function can be exploited to...

Firms will exert too little care due to a limited liability effect if damages are likely to exceed their equity. This is particularly important for environmental and product liability and motivates the current discussion about mandatory insurance and extending liability to creditors. We model...