In a model of pretrial bargaining under asymmetric information, we analyze the defendant’s threat to proceed to trial in the face of a rejected offer. The incidence of trial is lower when the defendant’s constraint is binding compared with the unconstrained case. The signs of some of the...

We develop a model of pretrial bargaining under asymmetric information where both the plaintiff and the defendant’s cost of proceeding to trial is an increasing function of the judgment at trial. This contrasts with the standard assumption that costs at trial are a constant. As a result of...

A government sets the level of taxation in order to provide a public good valued by consumers. There are two groups of consumers, the rich and the poor. The government has redistributive preferences, but is initially constrained to use lump sum taxation. This potentially leads the government to...

I develop models in which a minimum winning coalition decides on the level of government spending, where the Coase theorem holds amongst members of the winning coalition. An increase in the supermajority requirement has potentially conflicting effects on spending. A higher requirement increases...

Thomas Schelling (1966) cites bridge burning as a method of commitment. While such a commitment can increase the chances of success in a conflict, it will generally lower one's payoff if the conflict is lost. I use a standard rent seeking framework and establish conditions under which this type...

We develop a signaling model of final offer arbitration (FOA) in which the informed party makes the final settlement demand to the uninformed party. In FOA, each party submits a proposal to an arbitrator and if no agreement is reached, the arbitrator must select one of the two submitted...

How does an increase in group size affect individual welfare in the presence of Olson's group size paradox? Under the standard approaches to modeling the group size paradox, individual welfare will decrease as the size of the group increases. However, this may not be true if we apply the group...

We consider a model of litigation in which some defendants have insufficient assets to pay a judgment at trial. Because the defendant's assets are not observable, this serves as a source of asymmetric information which leads to trials in the equilibrium of the model. Unlike many other types of...

I develop a model in which a firm can choose to donate a portion of its profits to the provision of a public good. Consumers value this public good and are willing to pay a price premium to a firm which makes such a donation. When this price premium is sufficiently large, the firm can raise its...

In the 50 years since its publication, Mancur Olson's Logic of Collective Action has had an enormous impact on the academic literature in both economics and political science. In this review essay, I discuss Olson's work in light of the ensuing research, particularly developments in the...