Juries/courts sometimes award large punitive damages when the probability of detecting harm is high and take the recklessness of actions into account. However, economic theory suggests punitive damages should generally be low in such contexts. We argue that juries may be acting wisely. In...

This paper analyzes how university patents encourage university-firm collaboration for technology transfer. Focusing on factors other than competition, I find that the two may not collaborate either because the firm finds in-house development cheaper, or because of a disagreement about the...

The objective of this paper is to present a simple but flexible theoretical model of the adjudication process that can be used to derive implications of various hypotheses about the adjudicators and litigants for the trial win rates, appeal rates and the reversal rates. Such a model can serve as...

Multiple empirical studies find that juries/courts take account of potential harm in the determination of punitive damages. The received view in economic theory, however, is that punitive damages should not depend on potential harm. The purpose of this note is to provide an efficiency rationale...

Papers that compare group lending and individual lending in the presence of strategic default suggest that unless group members can impose costly social sanctions on one another, or unless the bank uses cross-reporting mechanisms group lending may do worse than individual lending. In this paper,...

The purpose of this paper is to explore the joint use of regulation and strict liability when firms can take care in both observable and unobservable dimensions and when the firm's conviction for damages is uncertain. Much of the literature concerning joint use regards management of the...