Volume 17, Issue 1

In many accident contexts, the expected accident harm depends on observable as well as unobservable dimensions of the precaution exercised by the parties involved. The observable dimensions are commonly referred to as the ‘care’ levels and the unobservable aspects as the ‘activity’ levels. In a seminal contribution, Shavell, S (1980). Strict liability versus negligence. J. Leg. Stud. 9: 1–25 extended the scope of the economic analysis of liability rules by providing a model that allows for the care as well as activity level choices. Subsequent works have used and extended Shavell’s model to predict outcomes under various liability rules, and also to compare their efficiency properties. These works make several claims about the existence and efficiency of equilibria under different liability rules, without providing any formal proof. In this paper, we re-examine the prevalent claims in the literature using the standard model itself. Contrary to these prevalent claims, we show that the standard negligence liability rules do not induce equilibrium for all of the accident contexts admissible under the model. Under the standard model, even the ‘no-fault’ rules can fail to induce a Nash equilibrium. In the absence of an equilibrium, it is not plausible to make a claim about the efficiency of a rule per-se or vis-a-vis other rules. We show that even with commonly used utility functions that meet all of the requirements of the standard model, the social welfare function may not have a maximum. In many other situations fully compatible with the standard model, a maximum of the social welfare function is not discoverable by the first order conditions. Under the standard model, even individually optimum choices might not exist. We analyze the underlying problems with the standard model and offer some insights for future research on this subject.

This paper analyzes the impact of citizenship laws on economic development. We first document the evolution of citizenship laws around the world, highlighting the main features of jus soli, jus sanguinis as well as mixed regimes, and shedding light on the channels through which they could have differentiated impact on economic development. We then compile a data set of citizenship laws around the world. Using cross-country regressions, panel-data techniques, as well as the synthetic control method and subjecting the results to a battery of tests, we find robust evidence that jus soli laws—being more inclusive—lead to higher income levels than alternative citizenship rules in developing countries, though to a less extent in countries with stronger institutional environment.

Several empirical studies explore the effects of regulatory enforcement on environmental behavior and performance. Within this literature, extremely little empirical research examines the role of fairness, which we interpret broadly to include multiple dimensions, e. g. similar treatment of similarly situated regulated entities. Our study empirically examines the effect of perceived enforcement fairness on the extent of compliance with wastewater limits imposed on chemical manufacturing facilities regulated under the Clean Water Act. Our study also explores the influence of perceived fairness on the effectiveness of enforcement efforts – government inspections and enforcement actions – at inducing better compliance. For our analysis, we use a subjective measure of the degree of “fair treatment” of regulated facilities by environmental regulators, as perceived by facilities and reported as survey responses. Results reveal that a more (perceived) fair enforcement approach raises compliance, but only under limited enforcement conditions; in most instances, perceived more fair enforcement lowers compliance. As important, results show that greater perceived fairness improves the effectiveness of federal inspections and informal enforcement, but undermines the effectiveness of state inspections and formal non-penalty enforcement.

In accident law, we seek a liability rule that will induce both the parties to adopt socially optimal levels of precaution. Economic analysis, however, shows that none of the commonly used liability rules induce both parties to adopt optimal levels, if courts have access only to ‘Limited Information’ on. In such a case, it has also been established (K. (2006). Efficiency of liability rules: a reconsideration. J. Int. Trade Econ. Dev. 15: 359–373) that no liability rule based on cost justified untaken precaution as a standard of care can be efficient. In this paper, we describe a two-step liability rule: the rule of negligence with the defence of relative negligence. We prove that this rule has a unique Nash equilibrium at socially optimal levels of care for the non-cooperative game, and therefore induces both parties to adopt socially optimal behaviour even in case of limited information.

International investment arbitration is a third-party dispute resolution mechanism aimed mainly at depoliticizing investment disputes and maintaining efficient investment flows among countries. Almost one-third of treaty-based investor-state disputes brought before this system are settled before the tribunal’s final ruling. Given the classical “Against Settlement” debate in the legal literature, we build an original database of treaty-based arbitrations from 1996 to 2016 to empirically test the determinants of early settlement. We find that the probability of settlement increases if the host state has no experience of resolving those kinds of disputes but decrease if it anticipates a favorable outcome. The nature of the regulatory measures applied by the host state and the identity of foreign investors are additional important determinants of settlement. Interestingly, we find strong evidence of a Dutch effect in dispute resolution.

Civil liability and ex ante authorizations are usually combined to regulate risks from high-risk industries. Authorizations may require firms to be sufficiently endowed with assets. Such a requirement is made in order to force sufficient risk internalization by firms, thus ensuring optimal decisions on risk control. But most studies on the incentives provided by asset requirements for controlling risks have been conducted in a context of a unique technology of production. When the firm has the possibility of adopting new and more cost-efficient technology, we show that tightening the minimum asset requirement can have a non-monotonic effect on the firm’s technological choice: increasing the firm’s level of assets can lead to a divergence of private and social interests as regards the technological choice. This feature can be observed both when the level of harm is dependent on, or independent of, the level of activity.

This paper studies the effect of constitutional commitment to social security (CCSS) on different categories of social expenditure. For this purpose, we use a pooled cross sectional database for 17 EU-countries from 1990 till 2012. We run OLS models, 2SLS regression models and the Heckman two step model, using the rigidity of the constitution as instrumental variable to correct for possible endogeneity. A positive effect of constitutional commitment to social security is found on total social expenditure and on all four categories of social security spending: old age and survivor, incapacity, unemployment and active labor market policies (ALMPs). The largest effect sizes, expressed as a percentage of average spending, are found for expenditure on unemployment and ALMPs. This shows that constitutional commitment to social security has the largest effect on social expenditure schemes targeted at people who are perceived as less deserving by the public opinion.

In this note, we analyze the question of who bears an employee’s special annual payment if different external funders pay an employee’s wages over the course of a year. To answer this question, we provide a legal argument and use cooperative game theory.