This paper examines the law and economics of third-party financed litigation. I explore the conditions under which a system of third-party financiers and litigators can enhance social welfare, and the conditions under which it is likely to reduce social welfare. Among the applications I consider...

This is a survey of the field of economic analysis of law, focusing on the work of economists. The survey covers the three central areas of civil law - liability for accidents (tort law), property law, and contracts - as well as the litigation process and public enforcement of law

This is the Japanese version of Class Actions in Brazil - A Model for Civil Law Countries, 51 American Journal of Comparative Law 311 (2003). The translation was prepared by Professors Koichi Miki and Hiro Uranishi. Asserting that class actions are compatible with civil law systems, the author...

The economic models of bargaining and tort law have not been integrated into a coherent theory that reflects the empirical world. This Article models the interaction of settlement dynamics and the theory of negligence. It shows that tort claims are systematically devalued during settlement...

Asserting that class actions are compatible with civil law systems, the author describes the Brazilian system of class actions, comparing it with its American counterpart, and placing it in the context of other systems' approaches to class action litigation. In this paper, the author presents...

The so-called Chicago School of law and economics, which emerged in the late 1970s, was regarded by many lawyers with considerable suspicion. Much of this suspicion was due to the artificial and unrealistic nature of the assumptions about human motivation that underpinned that School’s...

Courts assessing compensatory damages awards often lack adequate information to determine the value of a victim's loss. A central reason for this problem, which the literature has thus far overlooked, is that courts face a dilemma when applying their standard information-forcing tool to the...

Laws governing relations between spouses have undergone profound changes that continue to revolutionize the standards and procedures for dissolutions of marriage. The most dramatic changes in divorce law have come from the advent of no-fault divorce, the decline in spousal maintenance awards,...

This paper discusses the economics of causation in tort law, describing precise implications for precautionary incentives when courts are and are not perfectly informed. With precautionary incentives identified, we can ask whether the causation inquiry enhances welfare, and if so under what...

Under the but-for requirement of causation, a tort injurer cannot be held liable for more than the difference between the loss the victim would have suffered if the injurer had not been negligent, and the loss actually suffered by the victim. We ask whether this causation requirement yields...