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Asymmetric Reimbursement and Contingent Fees in Environmental Conflicts: Observable vs. Unobservable Contracts

Author

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  • Sung-Hoon Park

    (Department of Economics, Chosun University, 309 Philmoondaero, Dong-gu, Gwangju 61452, Republic of Korea)

  • Chad E. Settle

    (Department of Economics, University of Tulsa, 800 S. Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK 74104, USA)

Abstract

We investigate the impact of observability of contracts between a plaintiff and his attorney on both the efficiency of the environmental conflict and the fairness of the resulting outcome from the environmental conflict. By including two specific game-theoretic models (an observable-contract game and an unobservable-contract game), we find two key results: (i) The unobservability of a contract may increase inefficiency of the environmental conflict in terms of legal efforts; however, (ii) the unobservability of a contract may increase the fairness of the outcome in terms of the plaintiff’s probability of winning the contest.

Suggested Citation

  • Sung-Hoon Park & Chad E. Settle, 2023. "Asymmetric Reimbursement and Contingent Fees in Environmental Conflicts: Observable vs. Unobservable Contracts," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-10, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:14:y:2023:i:4:p:55-:d:1205111
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    References listed on IDEAS

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