Liability and safety regulation are examined as means of controlling risks in a theoretical model of the occurrence of accidents. According to the model, regulation does not result in appropriate reduction of risk -- due to the regulator's lack of knowledge about risk -- nor does liability...

Situations in which there is uncertainty over the cause of harm are studied (e.g., was the lung cancer due to normal exposure to medical x-radiation, to smoking, to exposure to carcinogens discharged by a chemical plant?); and the effects on incentives to reduce risk of various ways of treating...

Liability in tort and the regulation of safety are considered as means of controlling accident risks using the instrumentalist, economic method of analysis.Four general determinants of the relative social desirability of liability and regulation are first identified--differences in knowledge...

The effect of liability rules on accident avoidance is studied in two types of situations in which potential victims and potential injurers act sequentially: those where victims act first and injurers second; and those where the reverse is true. What is of special interest about the working of...

The question is asked how the incentives of private parties to bring suit relate to what would be socially appropriate given the costs of using the legal system; and the answer presented in the model that is examined involves two elements. The first is that as a potential plaintiff takes into...

The implications of uncertainty for the design of contracts and of remedies for their breach are studied. After characterizing complete contingent contracts, incomplete contracts are examined. Specifically, in view of difficulties in making contingent provisions (costs of enumeration and of...

Will a party who believes that he has a legally admissible claim for money damages decide to bring suit? if so, will he subsequently settle with the opposing party or will he go ahead to trial? These questions are analyzed under four methods for allocating legal costs, namely, under the American...

This article studies a model of liability for automobile accidents in the coming world in which automobiles will be autonomous. In that world, travelers will not be drivers, rendering liability premised on driver fault irrelevant as a means of reducing accident dangers. Moreover, no other...

Taxation and liability are compared here as means of controlling harmful externalities. It is emphasized that liability has an advantage over taxation: inefficiency of incentives arises under taxation when, as would be typical, it would be impractical for a tax to reflect all variables that...

Governments employ two basic policies for acquiring land: taking it through exercise of their power of eminent domain; and purchasing it. The social desirability of these two policies is compared in a model in which the government's information about landowners' valuations is imperfect. Under...