Trademark dilution needs to be rethought to ensure that it enhances social welfare. Blurring should only be considered harmful when it increases consumer search costs. The fact that a trademark calls to mind two different products should not itself be considered actionable. Blurring only causes...

Although modern societies generally entrust enforcement of the criminal law to public prosecutors, most crimes in pre-modern societies were prosecuted privately by the victim or a relative. This article is the first rigorously quantitative analysis of private prosecution. It focuses on...

If it were not so common, the reasoning in Walden v. Fiore would seem bizarre: the jurisdiction of a federal court over a federal claim against a federal agent depends on how much power the constitution allows the state of Nevada. This strange result is, of course, the result of FRCP 4(k)(1)(A),...

Priest and Klein’s 1984 article, “The Selection of Disputes for Litigation,” famously hypothesized a “tendency toward 50 percent plaintiff victories” among litigated cases. Despite the article’s enduring influence, its results have never been formally proved, and doubts remain about...

This essay surveys economic analyses of legal history. In order to make sense of the field and to provide examples that might guide and inspire future research, it identifies and discusses five genres of scholarship. 1) Law as the dependent variable. This genre tries to explain why societies...

For nearly a century, it has been black letter law that federal subject matter jurisdiction is non-waivable. Both parties and judges can raise subject matter jurisdiction problems at any time, even on appeal. This doctrine has been criticized as wasteful, because cases are sometimes dismissed...

This article sets out a pragmatic justification for the main features of current personal jurisdiction doctrine. According to that justification, personal jurisdiction rules minimize litigation costs and bias. This approach to personal jurisdiction helps resolve difficult and open jurisdictional...

Jurisdiction and choice of law in property disputes has been remarkably stable. The situs rule, which requires adjudication where the property is located and application of that state’s law, remains the norm in most of the world. This article is the first to apply modern economic analysis to...

This essay surveys economic analyses of legal history. In order to make sense of the field and to provide examples that might guide and inspire future research, it identifies and discusses five genres of scholarship. Law as the dependent variable. This genre tries to explain why societies have...

Priest and Klein (1984) argued that, because of selection effects, the percentage of litigated cases won by plaintiffs will not vary with the legal standard. Many researchers thereafter concluded that one could not make valid inferences about the character of the law from the percentage of cases...