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Optimal design of private litigation

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  • Kaplow, Louis

Abstract

This article translates and extends Becker (1968) from public law enforcement to private litigation by examining optimal legal system design in a model with private suits, signals of case strength, court error, and two types of primary behavior: harmful acts that may be deterred and benign acts that may be chilled. The instruments examined are filing fees or subsidies that may be imposed on either party, damage awards and payments by unsuccessful plaintiffs (each of which may be decoupled), and the stringency of the evidence threshold (burden of proof). With no constraints, results arbitrarily close to the first best can be implemented. Prior analyses of optimal damage awards, decoupling, and fee shifting are shown to involve special cases. More important, previous results change qualitatively when implicit assumptions are relaxed. For example, introducing a filing fee can make it optimal to minimize what losing plaintiffs pay winning defendants and to reduce the evidence threshold as much as possible — even though the direct effect of these adjustments is to chill desirable behavior, a key feature absent in prior work.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaplow, Louis, 2017. "Optimal design of private litigation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 64-73.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:155:y:2017:i:c:p:64-73
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.08.001
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    14. Louis Kaplow, 2011. "On the Optimal Burden of Proof," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(6), pages 1104-1140.
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    Cited by:

    1. De Mot, Jef & Miceli, Thomas J., 2019. "The optimal adjustment to liability when litigation is costly: A note," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 127-131.
    2. Andreea Cosnita-Langlais & Jean-Philippe Tropeano, 2018. "How procedures shape substance: institutional design and antitrust evidentiary standards," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 143-164, August.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Litigation; Law enforcement; Courts; Fee shifting; Decoupling; Filing fees; Burden of proof;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

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