To explore damage rules’ deterrent effect, we use a public good experiment to tailor allowable punishment to rules used in actual civil litigation. The experimental treatments are analogous to: (1) damages limited to harm to an individual litigant, (2) damages limited to harm to a group...

A simple auction-theoretic framework is used to examine symmetric litigation environments where the legal ownership of a disputed asset is unknown to the court. The court observes only the quality of the case presented by each party, and awards the asset to the party presenting the best case....

In an economic perspective, punitive damages and class actions can be viewed as sharing a common economic function – creating optimal deterrence. Building on Parisi and Cenini (2010), we study the effect of alternative procedural regimes on the effectiveness of punitive damages and class...

This paper empirically examines the impact of entrepreneurial firm plaintiff litigation on the ability of entrepreneurial firms to obtain venture capital (VC), and the subsequent effect on VC exit outcomes. This empirical context is important, as both the costs of litigation and potential...

Despite accounting for a significant fraction of total litigation in Italy, small claims litigation has so far received little attention. Using a Ministry of Justice database that contains information disaggregated by subject matter, the paper provides a thorough description of the time trend...

We investigate the causal relationship between judicial efficiency and firm size across Italian municipalities exploiting spatial discontinuities in court jurisdictions for identification. The estimated coefficients suggest that the reduction of the length of civil proceedings could exert, all...

In England 'multi-party' litigation can take various forms, of which the most important are (a) the opt-in system of Group Litigation Orders and (b) the opt-out system of Representative Proceedings. Category (b)n can yield damages to be distributed amongst the represented class, as recent case...

The article discusses the rights of unnamed class members in class actions and shareholders in corporate derivative suits to appeal court orders approving the settlement of their claims. As representative actions, class actions and derivative suits by definition necessarily determine the rights...

Economists, legal scholars and policy makers are concerned about the impact of patent litigation on the rate and direction of US innovation and on the functioning of the US intellectual property system. At this time, however, there is no reliable, comprehensive, free and publicly accessible...