Witnesses often gain by slanting testimony. Courts try to elicit the truth with perjury rules. Perjury is not truth-revealing; truth revelation is, however, possible. With a truth-revealing mechanism the judge will get little testimony because the defendant will not present witnesses with...

An arbiter can decide a case on the basis of his priors, or the two parties to the conflict may present further evidence. The parties may misrepresent evidence in their favor at a cost. At equilibrium the two parties never testify together. When the evidence is much in favor of one party, this...

Agents may commit a crime twice. The act is inefficient so that the agents are to be deterred. Even if an agent is law abiding, she may still commit the act accidentally. The agents are wealth constrained. The government seeks to minimize the probability of apprehension. If the benefit from the...

Two firms produce a product with a horizontal and a vertical characteristic. We call the vertical characteristic quality. The difference in the quality levels determines how the firms share the market. Firms know the quality levels, consumers do not. Under non-comparative advertising a firm may...

An arbiter can decide a case on the basis of his priors, or the two parties to the conflict may present further evidence. The parties may misrepresent evidence in their favor at a cost. At equilibrium the two parties never testify together. When the evidence is much in favor of one party, this...

In trials witnesses often slant their testimony in order to advance their own interests. To obtain truthful testimony, the law relies on cross-examination under threat of prosecution for perjury. We show that perjury law is an imperfect truthrevealing mechanism. Moreover, we develop a...

An arbiter can decide a case on the basis of his priors or he can ask for further evidence from the two parties to the conflict. The parties may misrepresent evidence in their favour at a cost. The arbiter is concerned about accuracy and low procedural costs. When both parties testify, each of...

First we show that for wealth-constrained agents who may commit an act twice, the optimal sanctions are the offender's entire wealth for the first crime, and zero for the second. Then we ask whether this decreasing sanction scheme is subgame perfect (time consistent), i.e., does a rent-seeking...

An arbiter can decide a case on the basis of his priors, or the two parties to the conflict may present further evidence. The parties may misrepresent evidence in their favor at a cost. At equilibrium the two parties never testify together. When the evidence is much in favor of one party, this...

An arbiter can decide a case on the basis of his priors or he can ask for further evidence from the two parties to the conflict. The parties may misrepresent evidence in their favour at a cost. The arbiter is concerned about accuracy and low procedural costs. When both parties testify, each of...