When liability for environmental spills, product failures, or other types of accidents is imposed on firms with insufficient wealth, those firms may file for bankruptcy ---thereby becoming ''judgement proof''--- as soon as a major accident occurs. As a result, they are unlikely to choose...

In this paper, we argue that the joint use of ex-ante regulation and ex-post liability rules is efficient when there are uncertainty surrounding causal investigations and regulatory myopia. As these conditions are generally met in environmental cases, we provide an explanation for the frequent...

In this paper, we examine the influence of medical malpractice tort reform on the level of private health insurance company losses incurred. We employ a natural experiment framework centered on a series of tort reform measures enacted in Texas in 2003 that drastically altered the medical...

Information technology is spreading in all fields of our lives. We use new technologies for many purposes, but many of us are not willing to learn more than necessary basics. The author elaborates some of the legal cases that were discussed in courts, and that show the responsibility of the...

This paper analyzes the workings of liability when harm-inflicting consumers are present biased and both product safety and consumer care influence expected harm. We show that present bias introduces a rationale for shifting some losses onto the manufacturer, in stark contrast with the baseline...

The present system for reparation of very large oil accidents at sea neither gives incentives to take efficient care, nor allow for compensation of all damages. The reason is that the magnitudes of the accidents that we study are so big that the total assets of the injurer are not sufficient to...

This paper analyzes liability rules when consumers and third parties/the environment incur harm. Expected harm is convex in the level of output and modeled as a power function. We show that the social ranking of liability rules previously established for the case in which only consumers suffer...

This paper analyzes liability rules when consumers and third parties/the environment incur harm. Expected harm is convex in the level of output and modeled as a power function. We show that the social ranking of liability rules previously established for the case in which only consumers suffer...

A growing body of literature suggests that courts and juries are inclined toward division of liability between two strictly non-negligent or “vigilant” parties. However, standard models of liability rules do not provide for vigilance-based sharing of liability. In this paper, we explore the...

In this paper we discuss a new tort liability rule, which we call super-symmetric comparative negligence and vigilance. When both injurer and victim in an accident are negligent, it provides for liability shares that depend on the degrees of negligence of the two parties, similar to the standard...