In this paper we discuss a new tort liability rule, which we call super-symmetric comparative negligence and vigilance. When both injurer and victim in an accident are negligent, it provides for liability shares that depend on the degrees of negligence of the two parties, similar to the standard...

A growing body of literature suggests that courts and juries are inclined toward division of liability between two strictly non-negligent or 'vigilant' parties. However, standard models of liability rules do not provide for vigilance-based sharing of liability. In this paper, we explore the...

This paper examines the problem of nonexistence of equilibrium in a simple search model with asymmetric information. A pure-strategy, symmetric Nash equilibrium fails to exist because adverse selection arising from steady-state considerations causes a nonconcavity in the payoff function.

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 article shows that it may be socially optimal to grant accident victims less than full compensation. In our framework, firms are liable under product liability but also invest in care to prevent consumers switching to competitors. Affecting the partition of consumers by means of care-taking...

The central hypothesis of this article is that liability regulation can foster firms' incentives to study the (potential) dangers of their products. We discuss alternative views and develop a formal model to analyze a firm's incentive structure under the application of hindsight liability. We...

The EU's Product Liability Directive (PLD) determines the rules for strict product liability in the EU. It establishes a framework in which manufacturers' liability is determined solely based on the presence of defects in the product, regardless of the manufacturer's fault. The PLD is intended...

We analyze a monopolist who offers different variants of a possibly dangerous product to heterogeneous customers. Product variants are distinguished by different safety attributes. Customers choose product usage which co- determines expected harm. We find that, even with customers being...

This paper explores the impact of product liability on vertical product differentiation when product safety is perfectly observable. In a two-stage competition, duopolistic firms are subject to strict liability and segment the market such that a low-safety product is marketed at a low price to...

This paper explores the impact of product liability on vertical product differentiation when product safety is perfectly observable. In a two-stage competition, duopolistic firms are subject to strict liability and segment the market such that a low-safety product is marketed at a low price to...