Multi-party litigation refers to different legal mechanisms that facilitate groups of litigants with similar causes of action to bring consolidated legal claims to court. The rise of collective action regimes around the world reflects a trend in civil litigation which offers an alternative to...

This paper examines the impact of jury racial composition on trial outcomes using a unique dataset of all felony trials in Sarasota County, Florida between 2004 and 2009. We utilize a research design that exploits day-to-day variation in the composition of the jury pool to isolate quasi-random...

In criminal cases the task of the judge is to transform the uncertainty about the facts into the certainty of the verdict. In this experiment we examine the relationship between evidence of which the strength is known, subjective probability of guilt and verdict for abstract cases. We look at...

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...

It has been argued that, under certain conditions, judges are motivated to engage in strategic defection against their appointer once they perceive the latter to be losing effective power. This behaviour should generate a clustering of decisions unfavourable to the incumbent administration at...

Drawing upon data interviews with Chinese judges who were involved in the decision-making process, we develop two variables for analyzing the influence of social ties, or guanxi, in the judicial setting. The first differentiates the strength of guanxi – whether it is strong or weak. The second...

This paper asks the question whether the courts have a role in shaping economic policy decisions at the EU level. It analyses which types of “economic” cases reached the courts during the financial crisis in the EU, and to what extent and with which arguments Member States' courts and the...

The fundamental question in any corporate bankruptcy case is whether the bankrupt firm should be liquidated or continued (and how). This paper provides a generic model as to how this question can be addressed by the bankruptcy judge who does not know at the outset whether the management of the...

Djankov et al. (2003a) propose and measure for 109 countries in the year 2000 an index of formalism of legal procedure for two simple disputes: eviction of a non-paying tenant and collection of a bounced check. For a sub-sample of 40 countries, we compute this index every year starting in 1950,...