Since 1970, at least 30 states have enacted legislation capping the damages plaintiffs can recover in a lawsuit. Guided by previous research on suit and settlement, we outline a simple framework for examining the effects of a cap on litigant judgments and the pretrial settlement rate. We then...

The authors explore the role that choice of comparison groups plays in explaining impasse in teacher contract negotiations. They hypothesize that the negotiators select 'comparable' districts in a biased fashion such that teachers' salaries in districts that unions view as comparable are higher...

In an attempt to reduce the liability insurance costs of firms, several US states have implemented many different kinds of tort reform. Some reforms take the form of caps or limits on punitive damage awards while others, called “split-awardsâ€, have mandated that a proportion of the...

Using data on collectively bargained outcomes in Pennsylvania schools in 1983-89, the authors find a strong relationship between the returns to education and tenure and the distribution of those attributes in the bargaining unit. For instance, the higher the median level of teacher tenure in a...