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Cognitive coherence and tort reform

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  • Landeo, Claudia M.

Abstract

We experimentally study the effects of the split-award tort reform, where the state takes a share of the plaintiff's punitive damage award, on litigants' beliefs and bargaining outcomes. In addition, we study the formation of litigants' beliefs in a strategic environment. Our results provide support for coherence-based reasoning theories: coherence shifts in litigants' background beliefs (elicited before a role is assigned and after commitment to a choice at the pretrial bargaining stage) suggest bi-directionality between choices and beliefs. Our findings also suggest role-specific bias in the updating of plaintiffs' beliefs about firm's negligence. Finally, our findings indicate that split-awards affect plaintiffs' beliefs about fairness and lower out-of-court settlement amounts.

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  • Landeo, Claudia M., 2009. "Cognitive coherence and tort reform," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 898-912, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:30:y:2009:i:6:p:898-912
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    Cited by:

    1. Landeo, Claudia & Nikitin, Maxim & Izmalkov, Sergei, 2012. "Playing against an Apparent Opponent: Incentives for Care, Litigation, and Damage Caps under Self-Serving Bias," Working Papers 2012-15, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 01 Oct 2012.
    2. Claudia M. Landeo & Kathryn E. Spier, 2020. "Optimal Law Enforcement with Ordered Leniency," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages 71-111.
    3. Claudia M. Landeo, 2018. "Exclusionary vertical restraints and antitrust: experimental law and economics contributions," Chapters, in: Joshua C. Teitelbaum & Kathryn Zeiler (ed.), Research Handbook on Behavioral Law and Economics, chapter 3, pages 75-100, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Landeo, Claudia & Spier, Kathryn, 2012. "It Takes Three to Tango: An Experimental Study of Contracts with Stipulated Damages," Working Papers 2012-14, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    5. Theodore Eisenberg & Christoph Engel, 2016. "Unpacking Negligence Liability: Experimentally Testing the Governance Effect," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(1), pages 116-152, March.
    6. Guerra Alice & Parisi Francesco, 2022. "Injurers versus Victims: (A)Symmetric Reactions to Symmetric Risks," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(2), pages 603-620, June.
    7. Claudia M. Landeo, 2018. "Law and economics and tort litigation institutions: theory and experiments," Chapters, in: Joshua C. Teitelbaum & Kathryn Zeiler (ed.), Research Handbook on Behavioral Law and Economics, chapter 9, pages 247-268, Edward Elgar Publishing.

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