Market forces, supplemented by government policy, affect how firms and households jointly determine product and workplace safety levels. After developing the economic theory of how labor and product markets pair prices and health risks we then explain the effects of the relevant government...

Tort and insurance law treat driving as a centrally important activity and treat injuries caused by automobiles as more significant than other injuries. The role of tort and insurance law in privileging injuries from driving, and driving itself, is largely unacknowledged in torts and insurance...

In countries with workers' compensation schemes, employees receive compensation for injuries at work regardless of fault, while civil law liability of employers is either limited or fully excluded. Compensation schemes provide several instruments to partially restore employers' accountability...

Little is known about the economics of plaintiff-side law firms, which typically work on a contingency fee basis. We begin here to fill that gap. We report on the fees received by 124 plaintiff-side personal injury firms located in four states (Illinois, Texas, and two additional undisclosed...

In the next decade, humans will increasingly share the roads with autonomous vehicles (AVs). The deployment of AVs has the potential to dramatically reduce the frequency and severity of motor vehicle crashes. Existing liability rules give companies developing AVs insufficient incentives to...

In this paper, I explore the often-contested territory that tort occupies within the more expansive domain of worker's compensation. This exploration reveals that, far from being substitutes, tort and worker's compensation are, in fact, deeply and inextricably joined: A complementarity that...

Federal courts have recently required proof of classwide injury to certify a class action for monetary remedies. Proof of classwide injury is defined as proof, which is common to the class, that the defendant's unlawful conduct injured every member of the class. This article argues that the...

What is the appropriate lump-sum compensation for loss of work income in personal injury cases? Since generally future work income is not known with certainty, compensation for its loss must be based on statistical considerations. Typically, courts have based awards on mean or median work...

Courts typically base compensation for loss of income in personal injury cases on either mean or median work income. Yet, quantatively, mean and median incomes are typically very different. For example, in the US median income is 65 percent of mean income. In this paper we use economic theory to...

Courts typically base compensation for loss of income in personal injury cases on either mean or median work income. Yet, quantatively, mean and median incomes are typically very different. For example, in the US median income is 65 percent of mean income. In this paper we use economic theory to...