We evaluate the effect of tort reform on employer-sponsored health insurance premiums by exploiting state-level variation in the timing of reforms. Using a dataset of healthplans representing over 10 million Americans annually between 1998 and 2006, we find that caps on non-economic damages,...

Tragedy of the human commons is a special case of tragedy of the commons in which the common resource is composed of human beings. Because humans, unlike trees or fish, behave strategically and because the welfare of humans, unlike that of trees or fish, matters for its own sake, tragedy of the...

This paper focuses on the economic and legal implications of the enactment of caps on non-economic damages on conflicting parties who know that state supreme courts may strike down the caps as unconstitutional within a few years of enactment. We develop a simple screening model where parties...

Sometimes the rules let you change the rules. In civil procedure, many rules are famously rigid—for example, neither parties nor the judge can stipulate to subject matter jurisdiction—but closer inspection yields many ways that judges or parties (individually or by agreement) can change...

This is the first large-scale empirical study of consumer third-party litigation funding in the United States. Despite being part of the American legal system for more than two decades there has been almost no real data-driven empirical study to date. We analyzed funding requests from American...

After inventing the intermittent windshield wiper, Robert Kearns tried to interest the “Big Three” automakers in licensing this technology. After rejecting his proposal, these companies all began using his patent without his permission and installing intermittent wipers on their cars. When...

Is it fair and just to charge men and women identical life insurance premiums despite their different actuarial risk? What about charging the old and the young different premiums? As entities whose core business is to classify people based on their actuarial risk, should private insurance...