This paper empirically examines the widespread belief that voluntarily negotiated agreements produce better long-run relationships than third-party imposed settlements, such as arbitrator decisions or court judgments. Two key outcomes are analyzed - subsequent player performance and the...

Disagreements over business deals, land boundaries, or loan non-repayment are very common sources of disputes, and courts are congested in developing countries. We evaluate the effects of the government introducing formal "village courts" (VCs) in rural Bangladesh using a randomized controlled...

This article analyses the interstate dispute settlement mechanisms between member states of the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund). The question as to how disputes between German sovereigns should be decided already had a long (pre-)history dating back to the Middle Ages. Article 11 IV of the...