The formulation of legal rules is a challenging issue for lawmakers. Trade-offs are inevitable between providing more guidance by specific rules and enlarging the scope by general rules. Using real options theory we show that the degree of precision should be considered as a degree of...

In an environment where the optimal level of care is unknown, we ask, under a state-of-the-art defense, which method is better able to induce parties to undertake optimal care. Assuming courts can see a noisy signal of research activities undertaken by a defendant and by some of its competitors,...

This article studies the location choices of French firms in 17 developing countries. Detailed attention is paid to the role of the patent rights in the host country. On the one hand, the reduction in competition that follows greater patent protection can attract foreign subsidiaries. On the...

This paper elaborates on a basic model of mass tort litigation, highlighting the existence of positive informational externalities afforded by the discovery process (as a general technology of production of evidences) in order to study when a class action is formed, or when a sequence of...

There is extensive literature on whether courts or legislators produce efficient rules, but which of them produces rules efficiently? The law is subject to uncertainty ex ante; uncertainty makes the outcomes of trials difficult to predict and deters parties from settling disputes out of court. In...