In this paper we primarily address the implications of the tort of defamation for the potential "chilling" effect by which the media are discouraged from exposing economic and political misdeeds. We argue that, in general, both the sanction for dishonesty and the compensation for defamation...

This paper invokes foundational property rights theories to explain the persistence of insecure tenure in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. The case studies affirm the theories' core propositions: when relative factor prices change, actors seek more narrowly defined rights to newly valued resources....

We consider a setting where a decision-maker has to resolve a dispute between two parties. On demand of the losing party, the decision may be subject to review by an appellate body. The decision-maker has discretionary power and may be opportunistic. Depending on the institution design,...

I examine the case where fulfillment of a contractual commitment is only imperfectly verifiable and ask whether the court should then tell the truth regarding the action in dispute. I show that truth seeking does not maximize the expected surplus from contractual relationships. From the parties'...

This article explores the relationship between governmental deterrence, crime, and the strength of social norms against crime. Based on experimental research in psychology and economics, I argue that the strength of the social norm of "not committing a crime" is shaped by social interactions....

We argue that the common-law standard of proof, given the rules of evidence, does not minimize expected error as usually argued in the legal literature, but may well be efficient from the standpoint of providing maximal incentives for socially desirable behavior. By contrast, civil law's higher...

This paper considers settlement negotiations between a single defendant and N plaintiffs when there are fixed costs of litigation. When making simultaneous take-it-or-leave-it offers to the plaintiffs, the defendant adopts a divide-and-conquer strategy. Plaintiffs settle their claims for less...

We provide a comparison of the adversarial and inquisitorial trial procedures. We find that social costs associated with a given level of justice are always smaller under the adversarial rule. Nevertheless, the inquisitorial rule may be better because it allows for state control of all the...