Litigation seems to be a Pareto-ineffcient outcome of pretrial bargaining; however, this paper shows that litigation can be the outcome of rational behavior by a litigant and her attorney. If the attorney has more information than his client concerning the characteristics of the lawsuit, the...

This paper presents an experiment performed to test the properties of an innovative bargaining mechanism (called automated negotiation) used to resolve disputes arising from Internet-based transactions. The main result shows that the settlement rule tends to chill bargaining as it creates...

We construct game theoretic foundations for bargaining in the shadow of a trial. Plaintiff and defendant both have noisy signals of a common-value trial judgment and make simultaneous offers to settle. If the offers cross, they settle on the average offer; otherwise, both litigants incur an...

In Final Offer Arbitration, both parties submit a proposal to an arbitrator. In the event the parties cannot reach a negotiated settlement, the arbitrator chooses the submitted proposal that is closest to her preferred settlement. In such a model, asymmetric information can lead to costly...

We construct game theoretic foundations for bargaining in the shadow of a trial. Plaintiff and defendant both have noisy signals of a common-value trial judgment and make simultaneous offers to settle. If the offers cross, they settle on the average offer; otherwise, both litigants incur an...

Arbitration, as an alternative to litigation for contract disputes, reduces costs and time. While it has frequently been thought of as a substitute to pretrial bargaining and litigation, in fact, parties may be able to reach a settlement privately while engaged in the arbitration process....

In this paper, we analyze the impact of Bad Debt Loss Insurance on settlement outcomes. A huge success in a settlement or trial may turn into a disaster when the defendant goes bankrupt. Rainmakers face the following dilemma: the greater the success in court, the greater the defendant's...

We briefly review two basic models of settlement bargaining based on concepts from information economics and game theory. We then discuss how these models have been generalized to address issues that arise when there are more than two litigants with related cases. Linkages between cases can...

As a result of the increasing divorce rate over the past decades, there is an increased need for settlements to divide marital property, to determine child custody and visitation, and to calculate the level of child support payments to be made by the noncustodial parent. Given the growing burden...

We construct game theoretic foundations for bargaining in the shadow of a trial. Plaintiff and defendant both have noisy signals of a common-value trial judgment and make simultaneous offers to settle. If the offers cross, they settle on the average offer; otherwise, both litigants incur an...