This article translates and extends Becker (1968) from public law enforcement to private litigation by examining optimal legal system design in a model with private suits, signals of case strength, court error, and two types of primary behavior: harmful acts that may be deterred and benign acts...

We analyze a model in which firms are able to acquire information about product risks and may or may not be required to disclose this information. We initially study the effect of disclosure rules assuming that firms are not liable for the harm caused by their products. Although mandatory...

This paper presents a strategic model of incentives for care and litigation under asymmetric information and self-serving bias, and studies the effects of caps on non-economic damages. We contribute to the theoretical law and economics literature by providing the first assessment of the effects...

This paper presents a strategic model of incentives for care and litigation under asymmetric information and self-serving bias, and studies the effects of damage caps. We contribute to the behavioral economics literature by generalizing the perfect Bayesian equilibrium concept to environments...

The existing literature postulates that in nuisance suits courts should balance, for a property right under conflict, several values of the litigating parties. This practice, however, is controversial, mainly due to courts´ resource scarcity. This paper suggests an alternative institutional...

We compare the performance of liability rules for managing environmental disasters when third parties are harmed and cannot always be compensated. A firm can invest in safety to reduce the likelihood of accidents. The firm's investment is unobservable to authorities. Externality and asymmetric...

This chapter provides a survey of much of the recent theoretical analysis of products liability. We start by describing an idealized model and providing the specific economic assumptions which underpin it. Later sections examine the effects of relaxing these assumptions, which has been the focus...

Using a structural model of the interactions between governments, firms and insurance companies, we characterise the distortions in environmental liability sharing between firms and insurance companies that the imperfect implementation of government policies implies. These distortions stem from...

This article challenges the statement that “the only legally relevant function of a trademark is to impart information as to the source of the product.” Information about the source of the product undoubtedly helps the consumer choose the product she wants from a set of possible products....

The literature on the optimal regulation of judgment-proof firms has tended to focus on ex post policies such extended liability. But in the recent past information disclosure has emerged as an alternative or a complementary risk mitigation strategy. This paper uses a model of entrepreneurial...