IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/huj/dispap/dp290.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Against Compromise: A Mechanism Design Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Alon Klement
  • Zvika Neeman

Abstract

We consider the following situation. A risk-neutral plaintiff sues a risk-neutral defendant for damages that are normalized to one. The defendant knows whether she is liable or not, but the plaintiff does not. We ask what are the settlement procedure and fee-shifting rule (which, together, we call a mechanism) that minimize the rate of litigation subject to maintaining deterrence. Two main results are presented. The ?rst is a characterization of an upper bound on the rate of settlement that is consistent with maintaining deterrence. This upper bound is shown to be independent of the litigants' litigation cost. It is further shown that any mechanism that attains this upper bound must employ the English fee-shifting rule according to which all litigation costs are shifted to the loser in trial. The second result describes a simple practicable mechanism that attains this upper bound. We discuss our results in the context of recent legal reforms in the U.S. and U.K.

Suggested Citation

  • Alon Klement & Zvika Neeman, 2003. "Against Compromise: A Mechanism Design Approach," Discussion Paper Series dp290, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    • Handle: RePEc:huj:dispap:dp290
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ratio.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/publications/dp290.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. J.J. Prescott & Kathryn E. Spier & Albert Yoon, 2014. "Trial and Settlement: A Study of High-Low Agreements," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(3), pages 699-746.
    2. J.J. Prescott & Kathryn E. Spier & Albert Yoon, 2014. "Trial and Settlement: A Study of High-Low Agreements," NBER Working Papers 19873, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Friehe, Tim & Pham, Cat Lam, 2021. "Accident avoidance and settlement bargaining: The role of reciprocity," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    4. Madhav S. Aney, 2012. "Conflict with Quitting Rights: A Mechanism Design Approach," Working Papers 18-2012, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    5. Gorkem Celik, 2015. "Implementation by Gradual Revelation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 271-296, June.
    6. Ben Chen & José A. Rodrigues-Neto, 2023. "The interaction of emotions and cost-shifting rules in civil litigation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(3), pages 841-885, April.
    7. Ayouni, Mehdi & Friehe, Tim & Gabuthy, Yannick, 2023. "Asking for information prior to settlement or trial when misrepresentation of evidence is possible," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 26-35.
    8. Ayouni, Mehdi & Friehe, Tim & Gabuthy, Yannick, 2020. "Opting for the English rule: On the contractual re-allocation of legal fees," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Neeman, Zvika & Pavlov, Gregory, 2008. "Renegotiation-Proof Mechanism Design," Foerder Institute for Economic Research Working Papers 275717, Tel-Aviv University > Foerder Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Benjamin Balzer & Johannes Schneider, 2021. "Managing a conflict: optimal alternative dispute resolution," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(2), pages 415-445, June.
    11. Andrew F. Daughety & Reinganum F. Reinganum, 2014. "Settlement and Trial: Selected Analyses of the Bargaining Environment," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 14-00005, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    12. Neeman, Zvika & Pavlov, Gregory, 2013. "Ex post renegotiation-proof mechanism design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 473-501.
    13. Ben Chen & Jose A. Rodrigues Neto, 2017. "Emotions in Civil Litigation," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2017-653, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    litigation; settlement; fee-shifting; pleadings; deterrence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:huj:dispap:dp290. 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: Michael Simkin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crihuil.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.