How does the need to signal quality through price affect equilibrium pricing and profits, when a firm faces a similarly-situated rival? In this paper, we provide a model of non-cooperative signaling by two firms that compete ...

We examine the effect of "split-award" statutes (wherein the State takes a share of a punitive damages award) on equilibrium settlements and the incentives to go to trial. We find that split-award statutes simultaneously ...

"Most-favored-nation" (hereafter, MFN) clauses have been used in analyses of international trade, durable goods monopoly pricing, and franchise contracting to address a repeat player's time-inconsistency problem. Recent ...

In this paper we examine the nexus between product markets and the legal system. We examine a model wherein oligopolists produce differentiated products that also have a safety attribute. Consumption of these products may ...

We develop and explore a new model of the economics of privacy. Previous work has focused on "privacy of type," wherein an agent privately knows an immutable characteristic. We consider "privacy of action," wherein privacy ...

This survey of the modeling of pretrial settlement bargaining organizes current main themes and recent developments. The basic concepts used are outlined as core models and then several variations on these core models are ...

In this paper we examine the behavior of a firm that produces a product with a privately-observed safety attribute; that is, consumers cannot observe directly the product¬πs safety. The firm may, at a cost, disclose its ...

We employ a simple two-period model to show that the use of confidential settlement as a strategy for a firm facing tort litigation leads to lower average product safety than that which would be produced if a firm were ...

We explore the interplay of market structure and government trade policy in the context of a heterogenous goods duopoly model (allowing for goods to be substitutes or complements) wherein governments simultaneously and ...

We briefly review two basic models of settlement bargaining based on concepts from information economics and game theory. We then discuss how these models have been generalized to address issues that arise when there are ...