Asymmetric information is a leading explanation for settlement failure that results in a costly trial. Typically, the information in question is assumed to have bilateral payoff relevance, meaning it affects the expected payoffs of both the plaintiff and defendant. When there is bilateral payoff...

Abstract: The author argues that the college textbook market provides a clear example of monopoly seeking as described by Tullock (1967, 1980). This behavior is also known as rent seeking. Because this market is important to students, this example of rent seeking will be of particular interest...

Review of: Special Interest Polictics. By Gene M. Grossmann, Elhanan Helpman. 2001. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA and London

We embed an ultimatum game in a stylized legal bargaining framework. This changes the framing of the standard ultimatum game in several ways but also moves the bargaining closer to what is found in some naturally occurring settings. In this context, the ultimatum game is played over the joint...

I develop a model in which there are two groups in society, one of which bears all the costs of a regulation that provides (potentially unequal) benefits to both groups. Absent compensation, a biased government will not choose the efficient level of regulation. If taxes are nondistorting, a...

"Recently, a great deal of controversy has been generated from the salaries earned by head coaches in the NCAA. Although many figures in the world of sports earn high salaries, one important difference in the case of the NCAA is that the players do not get paid. We develop a model that shows...

We develop a model with asymmetric information, in which the uninformed party makes the offer. When the parties proceed to trial, their endogenous expenditures partially determine the outcome. The endogenous spending at trial can either strengthen or weaken the bargaining position of the...

<link rid="b30">Rodrik (1995)</link> notes that trade regimes tend to be biased towards import protection, while the standard political economy models either yield no prediction on the bias of the trade regime or predict, counterfactually, a bias towards the export sector. This constitutes an important shortcoming in...