Professor John P. Anderson's article, What's the Harm in Issuer-Licensed Insider Trading?, argues that my “Law of Conservation of Securities” has no moral relevance to the question whether to allow such trading.The Law of Conservation of Securities demonstrates that each stock market insider...

This paper designs a mechanism that generalizes Judge Learned Hand's negligence liability tests from his classic opinions in T. J. HOOPER (1932) and CARROLL TOWING (1947). The “Benighted Hand” mechanism incentivizes truthful reporting of the agents' private costs of bilateral caretaking when...

This paper designs a mechanism that generalizes Ronald Coase's farmer-rancher example of nuisance law from his seminal article, “The Problem of Social Costs.” The mechanism incentivizes truthful reporting of the agents' private net benefits and costs of bilateral activity levels, thereby...

We characterize the distortions in environmental liability sharing between firms and banks that the imperfect implementation of government policies implies. These distortions stem from three factors: the presence of moral hazard, the use of objective functions by firms and banks that differs...

This paper considers whether lack of information regarding risk exposures can lead to a demand for negligence liability insurance. We find that, under the uniform negligence rule, any demand for liability insurance must come from informed individuals. The group whose privately optimal level of...

This paper examines a setting in which a firm is liable to pay environmental damages caused by its activity but may not have sufficient wealth for repair of damages. In order to induce the full internalization of the environmental cost, the firm is required to demonstrate a financial guarantee...

Firms communicate product quality attributes to consumers through a variety of channels, such as pricing, advertising, releases of research reports and test results, or warranties and returns policies. The conceptualization of the economics of such communication is that it takes on one of two...

An injurer undertakes precautions to reduce both the probability and the severity of an accident. The damages that the victim suffers are privately observed, and will be verified at a cost if the case is litigated. While finely tuned damage awards induce the injurer to take appropriate...

This essay reviews Allan Farnsworth's final book, Alleviating Mistakes: Reversal and Forgiveness for Flawed Perceptions (Oxford U. Press 2004). There are many kinds of mistakes. One kind - a rational, well-intended decision or act that results in unanticipated, negative consequences - was the...

Courts assessing compensatory damages awards often lack adequate information to determine the value of a victim's loss. A central reason for this problem, which the literature has thus far overlooked, is that courts face a dilemma when applying their standard information-forcing tool to the...