This paper defies the widely held belief concerning the unambiguous superiority of negligence in settings of judgment proofness. We analyze a set-up with bilateral harm, bilateral care, and potential judgment proofness by one party to the accident. We establish that strict liability with a...

This paper considers the tax evasion decision when taxes constitute contributions to the financing of social insurance programs, such as un employment insurance. We call this evasion contribution evasion and establish that critical differences exist between contribution evasion and tax evasion,...

This paper shows that individual risk-type uncertainty can prevent reforms of the insurance system that would benefit the majority of individuals. We consider the case where a subset of the population is uncertain of their risk type and contrast two insurance regimes; the status quo of mandated...

This paper analyzes the effects of different sequences of remedies on the incentives of sellers to invest in product quality and on the probability of contract termination. Despite ambitious efforts by the EU to harmonize national legislation, sales laws still differ significantly in Europe. The...

One central function of tort law is the inducement of precaution incentives. This is particularly welcome in settings in which the internalization of interdependencies between individuals relating to care and expected harm would otherwise not take effect due to high transaction costs broadly...

The severity of the sanction for a given offense is often determined by the offense history of the offender. We establish that this policy can be welfare-maximizing if individuals are imperfectly informed about the magnitude of the sanction. Imperfect information distorts individuals' perception...

This paper studies the impact of varying defendant fault on the comparison of litigation outcomes under the contingent fee regime and the legal expenses insurance regime. The criteria for regime comparison are: (i) expected plaintiff payoffs, (ii) plaintiff and defendant expenditures, (iii)...

This paper allows for avoidance activities in the accident setting and analyzes how this affects the evaluation of uncertain due care standards and of different negligence conceptions from an efficiency perspective. Importantly, our analysis also shows that punitive damages, i.e., damages above...

This paper establishes within an intertemporal framework that firm activity is influenced by tax evasion if firms can invest in their long-term competitiveness. Higher investment raises the firm's survival probability, which in turn reduces tax-evasion payoffs, since evaded taxes may also be...

This article shows that it may be socially optimal to grant accident victims less than full compensation. In our framework, firms are liable under product liability but also invest in care to prevent consumers switching to competitors. Affecting the partition of consumers by means of care-taking...