We analyze optimal sentence length for recurring crimes in the face of adjudication errors. We develop an infinite-horizon model where offenders are habitual---they repeat crimes whenever free. If apprehended, criminals may be wrongfully acquitted. Similarly, innocent persons may be apprehended...

This paper is about the incentive effects of legal presumptions. We analyze three interrelated effects of legal presumptions in a tort setting: (1) incentives to invest in evidence technology; (2) incentives to invest in care-type precautions; and (3) incentives to mitigate excessive activity...

In negligence regimes, tort plaintiffs traditionally bear the burden of proving the negligence of their defendants. Several European legal systems adopted rules that have reversed this traditional evidentiary rule in certain categories of torts, creating a rebuttable presumption of negligence...

This is the second of two companion papers that discuss accidents caused by robots. In the first paper (Guerra et al., 2021), we presented the novel problems posed by robot accidents, and assessed the related legal approaches and institutional opportunities. In this paper, we build on the...

In robot torts, robots carry out activities that are partially controlled by a human operator. Several legal and economic scholars across the world have argued for the need to rethink legal remedies as we apply them to robot torts. Yet to date, there exists no general formulation of liability in...

This chapter provides an overview of the application of experimental methods to three topics in law and economics: bargaining and the Coase theorem; pre-trial settlement and the litigation process; torts and liability rules. These research areas serve as examples of how economics experiments can...

This paper analyzes deterrence, settlement, and litigation spending under two alternative procedural regimes, i.e., the adversarial versus inquisitorial systems. We present a general litigation model with three sequential stages---care, settlement, and litigation stages---and we test the...