Economic analysis plays a major role in the American legal discourse, while its position in the German-speaking legal debate remains comparatively limited. In Germany and Austria, a widespread aversion against law and economics can be observed among legal scholars. This article advances an...

This paper presents experimental evidence from a simple three-person game showing that many individuals are willing to avenge third-party punishment in one-shot interactions. The threat of counter-punishment has a large negative effect on the willingness of third parties to punish selfish...

We run several experiments which allow us to compare cooperation under perfect and imperfect information and under a centralized and decentralized punishment regime. We find that (1) centralization by itself does not improve cooperation and welfare compared to an informal, peer-to-peer...

The roots of law & economics lie in late 19th century continental Europe. However, this early movement did not persist, having been cut off in the 1930s. After World War II, modern law & economics was (re-)invented in the United States and subsequently grew into a major field of research at U.S....

German Abstract: Ungeachtet zahlreicher Managementfehler im Zuge der Finanzkrise hat sich die Aktionärsklage nicht als wirksames Kontrollinstrument etabliert. Das Minderheitenquorum nach § 148 AktG verdeutlicht, dass die Missbrauchsgefahren dieses Rechtsbehelfs überbewertet werden. Die...

Most of the countries that are candidates for EU membership are from Central and Eastern Europe. Although their company laws are generally rooted in the Western (and Central) European legal tradition, the influence of Communism has also left a mark on their corporate law regimes. These regimes...

In the late nineteenth century, economic analysis of law experienced an outright rejection by the German-speaking legal community. In the second half of the twentieth century, it became a dominant approach in American legal inquiry. We argue that this success was partly due to the insights of...

The modern state has monopolized the legitimate use of force. This concept is twofold. First, the state is empowered with enforcement rights; second, the rights of the individuals are restricted. In a simple model of property rights with appropriation and defense activity, we show that a...

This paper starts from the premise that liability is incomplete and establishes that firms may nevertheless invest excessively in care. This may justify a (further) reduction in the level of liability from a social standpoint, thereby arguing against seeking to approach full compensation as...

We study information conditions under which individuals are willing to delegate their sanctioning power to a central authority. We design a public goods game in which players can move between institutional environments, and we vary the observability of others’ contributions. We find that the...