In this paper, we study the effects and desirability of legal rules that allow the sharing of an accident loss between a non-negligent injurer and his non-negligent victim. In order to identify the virtues and limits of loss-sharing rules, we begin by considering the effect of a loss-sharing...

In rent-seeking contests, players are seldom identical to one another. In this chapter, we examine the rent-seeking literature that explores the effects of specific forms of asymmetry between contestants. We consider Tullock's rent-seeking contests involving two players who differ in strength...

This paper presents a general rent-seeking model in which participants decide on entry before choosing their levels of efforts. The conventional wisdom in the rent-seeking literature suggests that the rent dissipation increases with the number of potential participants and with their...

We present a dynamic model of noncontractual litigation in which the parties' decision whether to litigate depends on information produced by courts and, vice versa, the courts' involvement in the lawmaking process depends on the cases proposed by the parties. Thereby, we integrate in one model...

This paper studies markets plagued with asymmetric information on the quality of traded goods. In Akerlof's setting, sellers are better informed than buyers. In contrast, we examine cases where buyers are better informed than sellers. This creates an inverse adverse selection problem: The market...

The analysis of tort law is one of the most well-developed applications of economic methodology in the study of law. In this essay, we provide an overview of the economic approach to tort law, analyzing the effects of liability rules on care incentives. We catalogue a variety of possible tort...

In Akerlof's 1970 Market for Lemons, asymmetric information arises because sellers are better informed than buyers. A seller’s informational advantage creates an adverse selection problem. When buyers are better informed than sellers, a mirror-image problem arises. Although both asymmetric...

The presence of multiple sellers in the provision of (non-substitutable) complementary goods leads to outcomes that are worse than those generated by a monopoly (with a vertically integrated production of complements), a problem known in the economic literature as complementary oligopoly and...

This paper studies markets plagued with asymmetric information on the quality of traded goods. In Akerlof’s setting, sellers are better in- formed than buyers. In contrast, we examine cases where buyers are better informed than sellers. This creates an inverse adverse selection problem: the...

This paper studies markets plagued with asymmetric information on the quality of traded goods. In Akerlof’s setting, sellers are better informed than buyers. In contrast, we examine cases where buyers are better informed than sellers. This creates an inverse adverse selection problem: the...