In liability lawsuits (e.g. patent infringement) a plaintiff demands compensation from a defendant and the parties often negotiate a settlement to avoid a costly trial. Liability insurance creates bargaining leverage for the defendant in this settlement negotiation. We study the characteristics...

We study signaling in dynamic contests with heterogeneous players. A privately-informed challenger faces a sequence of rivals of known types. The type of future rivals determines which signal the challenger wants to produce, whereas the strategic response of current rivals determines the extent...

Should a challenger face rivals simultaneously or sequentially? If sequentially, should he face weak or strong rivals first? To address these questions, we study signaling in dynamic contests, where a privately-informed challenger faces a sequence of rivals. Against heterogenous opponents, the...

In his seminal “prospect theory” of patents, Edmund Kitch contends that patents should be relatively broad in order to promote post-grant follow-on innovation and development. The argument rests critically on the assumption that post-grant competition will diminish such efforts. This is just...

There is widespread support for antitrust reform, fueled mainly by concerns about major platforms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Many believe that these companies have become too large and that they use their power in harmful ways. In the United States, some of the most aggressive reforms...

We study the effect of patent royalty damages on social welfare in an entry model of quantity competition. We show that fixed royalties are more effective than per-unit royalties in mitigating the inappropriability problem and promoting social welfare. Intuitively, per-unit royalties help...