In tort litigation, delayed settlement or impasse imposes high costs on the parties and society. Litigation institutions might influence social welfare by affecting the likelihood of out-of-court settlement and the potential injurers' investment in product safety. An appropriate design of...

Since the mid 2000s, a cottage industry has slowly blossomed of empirical research dedicated to advancing accounts of contracts “on the books” — accounting for what contracts tend to purportedly obligate signers to do, and contracts “in action” — accounting for how contracting...

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to assess the ability of an enforcement agency to detect and deter harmful short-term activities committed by groups of injurers. With ordered-leniency policies, early cooperators receive reduced sanctions. We replicate the strategic...

We test the empirical content of the assumption of preference dependent beliefs using a behavioral model of strategic decision making in which the rankings of individuals over final outcomes in simple games influence their beliefs over the opponent’s behavior. This approach— by analogy with...

Vertical restraints, such as vertical integration, exclusive dealing contracts, and tying and bundling practices, have been subject of lively policy and academic discussions. Scholars associated with the Chicago School challenged early foreclosure doctrines by arguing that vertical restraints...

Coasian reasoning predicts that the conditions under which parties may terminate a partnership will affect bargaining between partners, but not the durability of partnerships. This paper endeavors to test both predictions in an experimental setting that allows agents to form and end partnerships...

This paper reports a 3-phase experiment on a stylized labor market. In the first two phases, agents face simple games, which we use to estimate subjects' social and reciprocity concerns, together with their beliefs. In the last phase, four principals, who face four teams of two agents, compete...

We replicate two treatments of an experimental theory test (Fehr et al., 2011) studying Hart and Moore (2008)'s idea that contracts serve as reference points in trading relationships. In contrast to rigid contracts, flexible contract terms may be perceived in a self-serving manner and,...