We describe how product liability interacts with regulatory product approval in influencing a firm's incentives to acquire information about product risk, using a very parsimonious model. The firm may have insufficient information acquisition incentives when it is not fully liable for the harm...

This paper analyzes liability rules when consumers and third parties/the environment incur harm. Expected harm is convex in the level of output and modeled as a power function. We show that the social ranking of liability rules previously established for the case in which only consumers suffer...

This paper analyzes liability rules when consumers and third parties/the environment incur harm. Expected harm is convex in the level of output and modeled as a power function. We show that the social ranking of liability rules previously established for the case in which only consumers suffer...

We describe how product liability interacts with regulatory product approval in influencing a firm's incentives to acquire information about product risk, using a very parsimonious model. The firm may have insufficient information acquisition incentives when it is not fully liable for the harm...

This paper analyzes liability rules when consumers and third parties/the environment incur harm. Expected harm is convex in the level of output and modeled as a power function. We show that the social ranking of liability rules previously established for the case in which only consumers suffer...