The goal of this paper is to detect the degree to which court decisions control the stringency of employment protection and to investigate how such judicial discretion affects labor market performance. However, identification difficulty arises because court decisions are volatile against...

Recent developments in the literature on employment protection legislation (EPL) have revealed that changing the stringency of employment protection can lead to extensive consequences outside of the labour market, by affecting firms’ production decisions or workers’ commitment levels. This...

We analyze the outcomes of 332 cases from a labor court in Mexico in which a judge awarded money to a plaintiff who claimed to have been fired by a firm without cause. The judgments were enforced in only 40% of the cases. A plaintiff may try to enforce a judgment by petitioning the court to...

Courts are an important element in the institutional framework of labor markets, often determining the actual degree of employment protection. German labor courts provide a vivid example in this regard. However, we know relatively little about actual court behavior. A unique data set on German...

Die vorliegende Studie befasst sich mit der Frage, inwiefern tendenziöses Entscheidungsverhalten von Richtern an deutschen Landesarbeitsgerichten theoretisch zu erwarten und statistisch zu belegen ist und inwieweit politische Einflussnahme auf die Rechtsprechung eine Rolle spielt. Die...

The decision making of judges is prone to error and misapprehension. Consequently, the prevailing literature ties the economic function of courts to dispute resolution and minimization of rule making costs. In contrast to previous research, this analysis applies a contract theoretic perspective...

The paper analyses the arbitration of dismissal disputes by Australian labour courts over a 15 years' time span characterized by two major legal reforms to unfair dismissal statutes. We isolate two channels by which we think the social values of the Federal government affected the decisions of...

Many have argued that thought should constitute per se unpatentable subject matter, and some have even suggested that any patent claim that includes a mental step should lie outside patentability. Many courts have long disagreed with such a draconian rule, and have instead upheld myriad patent...

As businesses move their confidential information onto computers, sensitive data gains the protection not only of state trade secret law, but also potentially of federal computer misuse statutes. The interaction between those two bodies of law, however, is more problematic than any commentator...

Employee raiding scenarios provide a unique opportunity for students examine the intersection of business strategy and the law. This article provides a high-energy teaching case study and teaching note that places students in the role of business decision-makers facing the unforeseen and abrupt...