In rent-seeking contests, players are seldom identical to one another. In this chapter, we examine the rent-seeking literature that explores the effects of specific forms of asymmetry between contestants. We consider Tullock’s rent-seeking contests involving two players who differ in strength...

In this paper, we explore the mechanisms employed by the French judges while discharging personal debts in exchange for liquidation of debtors' assets. Our empirical results highlight the determinants of judicial selection between debtors whose debts are wiped out and those who have to reimburse...

When accidents result in noncompensable losses, a monetary payment is not enough to compensate the victim. We study the characteristics of optimal levels of care and distribution of risk under these circumstances and show that care depends on the aggregate wealth of society but does not depend...

Our paper addresses the question of the deterrent effect of a monetary sanction associated to a collective rather than an individual liability, when crimes are realized within a hierarchical gang (defined as a criminal organization where the leader is a sleeping partner and several agents are...

This paper analyzes liability rules when consumers and third parties/the environment incur harm. Expected harm is convex in the level of output and modeled as a power function. We show that the social ranking of liability rules previously established for the case in which only consumers suffer...

This paper analyzes liability rules when consumers and third parties/the environment incur harm. Expected harm is convex in the level of output and modeled as a power function. We show that the social ranking of liability rules previously established for the case in which only consumers suffer...

In this paper, we assume that a criminal organization is an agency where the Principal and the Agent have different sensibilities towards the risk of arrestation and punishment, and at the same time have different skills with respect to general organization tasks, crime realization or detection...

This papers studies three questions. What do we know about criminals 'preferences ? How should we represent such preferences ? What are the consequences for law enforcement policies ?

The paper addresses the issue of the impact of asymmetric information on risk aversion of litigant parties in a model à la Bebchuk. First we study the case where the plaintif is the informed party, and characterize the equilibrium with and without a pretrial negociation round. Then, we focuse...

Does dismissal law create a "judicial risk" to which french firms are exposed? The paper discusses the different arguments (Blanchard and Tirole (2003), Cahuc and Kramarz (2004), Munoz-Perez and Serverin (2005)) using the empirical available evidence together with basic tools in economics of...