Volume 2, Issue 3

Economic models of negligence ordinarily involve a single standard of care that all injurers must meet in order to avoid liability. When injurers differ in their costs of care, however, this leads to distortions in their care choices. This paper derives the characteristics of a generalized negligence rule that induces injurers to self-select their optimal care levels. The principal features of the rule are (1) the due standard of care is maximal, and (2) liability increases gradually as injurers depart further from this standard. The results are broadly consistent with the gradation in liability under certain causation rules and under comparative negligence.

We demonstrate that contingent attorney fees can play a strategic role in a model of nuisance suits. Specifically, the use of contingency fees makes the plaintiff’s threat to go to trial credible. In contrast to previous economic analyses, we show that contingency fees do encourage nuisance suits.

This article derives key variables in the analysis of standards of proof in criminal law from basic conditional probabilities. The variables derived are the probability of correct and wrongful conviction, the expected sanction, and society's incarceration costs, while the basic conditional probabilities are the probability of observing (any given) evidence against individual i given that individual j committed the crime (for any j including j equal to i. The variables are derived from the conditional probabilities as a function of the standard of the proof using simple Bayesian updating.

In this paper we analyze the necessity of an appeals process in private-civil litigation from the point of view of potential litigants. Our main concern is the question of whether the existence of an appeals system is to the benefit of potential litigants or if they would be better off in a system in which appeals are not possible. Our main observation is that it is unnecessary to enable appeals in all civil litigation. Indeed, a judicial system with a built-in appeals process is in many cases less desirable for the parties involved.

In some areas of the United States, racial and ethnic minorities have been effectively excluded from the democratic process by a variety of means, including electoral laws. In some instances, the Courts have sought to remedy this problem by imposing alternative voting methods, such as cumulative voting. I examine several voting methods with regard to their sensitivity to rent-seeking. Methods which are less sensitive to rent-seeking are preferred because they involve less social waste, and are less likely to be co-opted by special interest groups. I find that proportional representation methods, rather than semi-proportional ones, such as cumulative voting, are relatively insensitive to rent-seeking efforts, and thus preferable. I also suggest that an even less sensitive method, the proportional lottery, may be appropriate for use within deliberative bodies, where proportional representation is inapplicable and minority vote dilution otherwise remains an intractable problem.