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Author: A. Mitchell Polinsky Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
A central result in the economic theory of liability is that, if an injurer's liability equals the victim's loss, then either the rule of strict liability or the rule of negligence can induce the injurer to behave properly. However, for this result to hold, the injurer must know the victim's loss before the injurer decides whether to engage in the harmful activity and, g fortiori, before any harm has occurred. This paper reevaluates the rules of strict liability and negligence when the injurer's information is imperfect. Two questions are addressed: Under each rule, should the level of liability imposed on the injurer still equal the victim's loss? Are the rules of strict liability and negligence still equally desirable? With respect to the first question, it is demonstrated that the optimal level of liability generally is not equal to the victim's loss. With respect to the second question, it is shown that if the injurer's liability equals the victim's loss, then the two rules are equivalent, but if liability is set optimally under each rule, then strict liability generally induces the injurer to behave in a more appropriate way.
Author: A. Mitchell Polinsky Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
A central result in the economic theory of liability is that, if an injurer's liability equals the victim's loss, then either the rule of strict liability or the rule of negligence can induce the injurer to behave properly. However, for this result to hold, the injurer must know the victim's loss before the injurer decides whether to engage in the harmful activity and, g fortiori, before any harm has occurred. This paper reevaluates the rules of strict liability and negligence when the injurer's information is imperfect. Two questions are addressed: Under each rule, should the level of liability imposed on the injurer still equal the victim's loss? Are the rules of strict liability and negligence still equally desirable? With respect to the first question, it is demonstrated that the optimal level of liability generally is not equal to the victim's loss. With respect to the second question, it is shown that if the injurer's liability equals the victim's loss, then the two rules are equivalent, but if liability is set optimally under each rule, then strict liability generally induces the injurer to behave in a more appropriate way.
Author: United States. Department of Justice. Criminal Division Publisher: ISBN: Category : Intervention (Criminal procedure) Languages : en Pages : 574
Author: Douglas G. Baird Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674252187 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 348
Book Description
This book is the first to apply the tools of game theory and information economics to advance our understanding of how laws work. Organized around the major solution concepts of game theory, it shows how such well known games as the prisoner’s dilemma, the battle of the sexes, beer-quiche, and the Rubinstein bargaining game can illuminate many different kinds of legal problems. Game Theory and the Law highlights the basic mechanisms at work and lays out a natural progression in the sophistication of the game concepts and legal problems considered.
Author: Elga Bartsch Publisher: University of Michigan Press ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
From an economic point of view, liability for environmental damages aims at two goals. On the one hand, liability should efficiently allocate the risk imposed by the stochastic nature of environmental damages. On the other hand, ex post liability should generate ex ante incentives to take appropriate precautions against environmental risk. In reality, precautionary incentives generated by civil liability for environmental damages are often reduced by various impediments to the enforcement of legal claims. One of the key impediments is uncertain causation, especially when precautionary pollution control measures cannot be easily observed. This book analyzes the consequences of asymmetric information regarding the precautionary pollution control measures on enforcing legal claims, and, hence, on the precautionary incentives. The question is discussed against the background of the 1991 German Environmental Liability Act (Umwelthaftungsggesetz). In the first part of this book, Elga Bartsch gives an overview of selected liability systems and then derives the conditions for an optimal liability rule in a situation of uncertain causation and imperfect information within the principal-agent framework. This theoretical discussion is followed by an empirical analysis of the impact of the German Environmental Liability Act on the German chemicals industry by means of an event study. Its results indicate that the change in the legal framework did not have an adverse effect on the German chemicals industry.
Author: Annette Hofmann Publisher: VVW GmbH ISBN: 3862981134 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 191
Book Description
The focus of this thesis is on consumer diversity. Incorporating consumer heterogeneity into economic analysis is well-established in industrial organization literature; this aspect is, however, often neglected in microeconomic insurance models. A first new approach lies in analyzing risk interdependencies. When risks are interdependent, an agent's decision to self-protect affects the loss probabilities faced by others. Due to these externalities, economic agents invest too little in prevention relative to the socially efficient level by ignoring marginal external costs or benefits conferred on others. We analyze an insurance market with externalities of loss prevention. It is shown in a model with heterogenous agents and imperfect information that a monopolistic insurer can achieve the social optimum by engaging in premium discrimination. An insurance monopoly reduces not only costs of risk selection, but may also play an important social role in loss prevention. This result can be empirically confirmed. We also deal with the impact of intermediation on insurance market transparency and performance. In a differentiated insurance market under imperfect information, uninformed consumers may become informed about product suitability by consulting an intermediary. We analyze current broker compensation systems: commissions and fees. While insurers' equilibrium profits are equivalent under both systems, social welfare under fees is first-best efficient. Both systems may offer the opportunity to increase profits via collusion. Under a commission system, collusion enables insurers to separate consumers into groups purchasing different contracts. Insurers may then extract additional rents from some consumers. This might explain why intermediaries tend to be compensated by insurers in practice. Finally, we study optimal monopoly pricing given imperfect information and heterogenous policyholders. Die in englischer Sprache verfasste Arbeit ist der mikroökonomischen Analyse von Versicherungsmärkten gewidmet. Zunächst werden einige wichtige theoretische Grundlagen der Versicherungsnachfragetheorie beschrieben. Eine zentrale Erweiterung des Basismodells stellen interdependente Risiken dar. Bestehen Risikointerdependenzen, so sind alle Maßnahmen, die die Schadenshäufigkeit reduzieren, mit positiven externen Effekten verbunden. Es wird gezeigt, dass im Gleichgewicht das realisierte Präventionsniveau unterhalb des optimalen Niveaus angesiedelt ist. Aufgrund der Externalitäten kommt es zu einem Marktversagen und nur ein Monopolversicherer kann eine differenzierte Prämienstruktur herbeiführen, die zum optimalen Präventionsniveau führt. Dieses Ergebnis kollidiert mit dem Ergebnis, dass wettbewerbliche Versicherungsmärkte zu einer höheren Gesamtwohlfahrt führen, es lässt sich jedoch empirisch stützen. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt der Arbeit liegt auf unvollkommenen Versicherungsmärkten, wobei heterogene Versicherungsnachfrager mit unterschiedlichen Produktpräferenzen und Informationskosten unterstellt werden. In einem solchen Markt erhöhen Versicherungsvermittler die Markttransparenz und damit auch die Gewinne der Versicherer. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Analyse verschiedener Vergütungsformen der Vermittler. Ein Vergütungssystem auf Basis von Beratungshonoraren ist einem Provisionssystem aus wohlfahrtsökonomischer Perspektive vorzuziehen. Aus Sicht der Versicherer kehrt sich dieses Ergebnis allerdings um, sobald es zur Kollusion zwischen Versicherern und Vermittlern kommt. Der letzte Schwerpunkt liegt in der Analyse einer optimalen Preispolitik eines Versicherungsmonopolisten bei heterogenen Nachfragern, die sich durch ihre Risikopräferenzen und damit ihre individuelle Zahlungsbereitschaft für Versicherungen unterscheiden.
Author: A. Mitchell Polinsky
Author: A. Mitchell Polinsky
Author: 
Author: United States. Department of Justice. Criminal Division
Author: Douglas G. Baird
Author: United States. General Accounting Office
Author: Laurence Ball
Author: Avon K. Leong
Author: Elga Bartsch
Author: United States. General Accounting Office
Author: Annette Hofmann