The eminent domain clause of the U.S. Constitution concerns the limits of the government's right to take private property for public use. The economic literature on this issue has examined (1) the proper scope of this power as embodied by the "public use" requirement, (2) the appropriate...

Tax motivated takings are takings by a local government aimed purely at increasing its tax base. Such an action was justified by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kelo v. New London, which allowed the use of eminent domain for a private redevelopment project on the grounds that the project...

Although the holdout problem is an established part of legal and economic lore, the exact source of the problem is not well understood. It is usually attributed to high transaction costs or bargaining power on the part of sellers. To isolate the essential features of the problem, we consider the...

One of the great successes of the law and economics movement has been the use of economic models to explain the structure and function of broad areas of law. The original contributions to this volume epitomize that tradition, offering state-of-the-art research on the many facets of economic...

The holdup and holdout problems arise in different contexts, but they share certain fundamental similarities that have not generally been recognized. This paper characterizes the commonalties between the two problems and their remedies.

Recently, attention has turned to the use of voluntary agreements between regulators and polluters as an alternative to mandatory approaches based on regulation or legislation. Voluntary agreements have the potential to reduce compliance costs by allowing greater flexibility and to reduce...

This paper clarifies the relationship between an injurer's wealth level and his care choice by highlighting the distinction between monetary and non-monetary care. When care is non-monetary, wealth-constrained injurers generally take less than optimal care, and care is increasing in their wealth...

Conventional tort law bars victims of exposure to a toxic substance from filing suit until they actually develop symptoms of illness. Practically speaking, this rule often bars recovery due to bankruptcy and causal uncertainty. One solution is to allow victims to file at exposure for expected...

Conventional tort law does not allow exposure victims to seek compensation until they develop symptoms of illness. Because this may bar recovery if the injurer is judgment proof, some have advocated allowing victims to sue at exposure. However, critics charge that such a tort for risk would...