The myriad uncertainties common to the process of adjudication--concerning evidence that opposing parties will present, legal issues that will become relevant, illness of witnesses, and the like--lead to two social problems. First, when unanticipated events occur, the information that parties...

This is a survey of legal liability for accidents. Three general aspects of accident liability are addressed. The first is the effect of liability on incentives, both whether to engage in activities (for instance, whether to drive) and how much care to exercise (at what speed to travel) to...

This is a survey of economic analysis of law, that is, of the emerging field under which the standard tools of microeconomics are employed to identify the effects of legal rules and their social desirability. Five basic subject areas are covered. The first is legal liability for harm. Here we...

The prison time actually served by a convicted criminal depends to a significant degree on decisions made by the state during the course of imprisonment — on whether to grant parole or other forms of sentence reduction. In this article we study a model of the adjustment of sentences assuming...

The theory of insurance is considered here when an insured individual may be able to sue another party for the losses that the insured suffered — and thus when an insured has a potential source of compensation in addition to insurance coverage. Insurance policies reflect this possibility...