IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mve/journl/v28y2002i1p67-78.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Punitive Damages and the Optimal Level of Product Failure

Author

Listed:
  • Raymond J. Ballard

    (Texas A&M University-Commerce)

  • Dale R. Funderburk

    (Texas A&M University-Commerce)

Abstract

For several years a battle has been waged between trial lawyers and American business regarding the issue of punitive damage awards. Given the staggering magnitude of the monetary penalties that modern juries often impose against defendant firms, as well as the potential damage to the reputation of the company, how far should a supplier go in terms of efforts to improve product performance and reduce safety risks? We present a simple model that may be used as a framework for determining the optimal level of product safety/failure.

Suggested Citation

  • Raymond J. Ballard & Dale R. Funderburk, 2002. "Punitive Damages and the Optimal Level of Product Failure," Journal of Economic Insight, Missouri Valley Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 67-78.
    • Handle: RePEc:mve:journl:v:28:y:2002:i:1:p:67-78
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mve:journl:v:28:y:2002:i:1:p:67-78. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Cullen Goenner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mveaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.