The paper attempts to explain the failure of postcommunist traders exemplified by Balkan traders to make use of arbitration courts by means of the rational choice of forum approach offered by the law and economics movement. Conjectures about traders? behaviour derived by combining this approach...

Mutually beneficial agreements might fail if the parties fear contractual opportunism. Litigation is supposed to be a remedy, but gives scope for another kind of opportunistic behavior which we call litigational opportunism: Even knowing that the opponent has fulfilled his obligations, a party...

There is extensive literature on whether courts or legislators produce efficient rules, but which of them produces rules efficiently? The law is subject to uncertainty ex ante; uncertainty makes the outcomes of trials difficult to predict and deters parties from settling disputes out of court. In...

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...

We model the settlement of a legal dispute where the trial outcome depends on the behavior of a strategically motivated judge. We consider a standard asymmetric information model where the uninformed defendant makes a take it or leave it offer. If the case goes to trial, the judge decides how...

Settlements are often considered to be welfare-enhancing because they save time and litigation costs. In the presence of court error, however, this conclusion may be wrong. Court decisions create positive externalities for future litigants which will not occur if a dispute is settled out of...

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...

There is extensive literature on whether courts or legislators produce efficient rules, but which of them produces rules efficiently? The law is subject to uncertainty ex ante; uncertainty makes the outcomes of trials difficult to predict and deters parties from settling disputes out of court. In...

Settlements are often considered to be welfare-enhancing because they save time and litigation costs. In the presence of court error, however, this conclusion may be wrong. Court decisions create positive externalities for future litigants which will not occur if a dispute is settled out of...

This article develops a simple model using the economist's toolkit to analyze the mechanism of judicial proof. The survey focuses on the notions of burden of proof, legal presumptions, standard of proof, on legal procedure and on the judge's role during the proceedings. The rules of proof are...