We compare the wage costs of providing incentives through group versus individual bonus schemes. When workers are envious, either scheme may be the least cost one owing to the trade-off between the dissatisfaction with the prospect of unequal pay and the incentives it generates Nous comparons...

This paper analyzes the incentive properties of the standard and burden of proof for a finding of negligence, when evidence about injurers' behavior is imperfect and rests with the parties. We show that the `preponderance of evidence' standard used in common law, together with ordinary exclusion...

We argue that the common law standard of proof, given the rules of evidence, does not minimize expected error as usually argued in the legal literature, but may well be efficient from the standpoint of providing maximal incentives for socially desirable behavior. By contrast, civil law's higher...

This paper analyzes the trade-off between monitoring and incentives in a principal-agent relationship with moral hazard. We derive general results on the optimal monitoring-incentives mix for the case where both parties are risk-neutral and the agent faces a limited liability constraint. We show...

This paper analyzes the incentive properties of the standard and burden of proof for a finding of negligence, when evidence about injurers' behavior is imperfect and rests with the parties. We show that the `preponderance of evidence' standard used in common law, together with ordinary exclusion...

This paper analyzes the incentive properties of the standard and burden of proof for a finding of negligence, when evidence is imperfect and rests with the parties. We show that the “preponderance of evidence' standard provides maximal incentives to exert care. This holds even though litigants...

We analyze the design of legal principles and procedures for court decision-making in civil litigation. The objective is the provision of appropriate incentives for potential tort-feasors to exert care, when evidence about care is imperfect and may be distorted by the parties. Efficiency is...

We analyze the design of legal principles and procedures for court decision making in civil litigation. The objective is the provision of incentives for potential tort-feasors to exert care when evidence is imperfect and may be distorted by the parties. Efficiency is consistent with courts...

We provide an integral condition for the ranking of general information systems in the agency problem. The condition has a straightforward economic interpretation in terms of the sensitivity of a cumulative distribution with respect to the agent's effort. The proposed criterion is shown to be...