Judges become ambitious decision makers when they face appellate review. This paper applies a contract theoretic perspective to the behavior of self-interested trial judges in a twolevel court system and analyzes the consequences for contracting in “the shadow of” the court. Confronted with...

Nach dem Grundsatz «pacta sunt servanda» ermöglichen Verträge den Beteiligten das Vertrauen in den Bestand eines Leistungsversprechens. Die Zivilgerichte können jedoch in der Praxis pflichtgemäßes und vertragswidriges Verhalten nicht fehlerfrei unterscheiden. Unter Zuhilfenahme des...

The appellate review system is intended to serve as an efficient remedy for imperfect judicial decision making. However, it can fulfill this task only when appeals are filed solely due to bad verdicts and are ex-ante unpredictable based on factors that are exogenous to the judge. Using data from...

The prosecution of criminals is costly, and subject to errors. In contrast to adversarial court procedures, the prosecutor is regarded as an impartial investigator and aide to the judge in inquisitorial justice systems. We show in a sequential prosecution game of a Bayesian court that a...