Information Costs and the Civil Justice System

Authors

Keith N. Hylton, Boston University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-2023

ISSN

1465-7252

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Language

en-US

Abstract

Litigation is costly because information is not free. Given that information is costly and perfect information prohibitively costly, courts will occasionally err. Finally, the fact that information is costly implies an unavoidable degree of informational asymmetry between disputants. This paper presents a model of the civil justice system that incorporates these features and probes its implications for compliance with the law, efficiency of law, accuracy in adjudication, trial outcome statistics, and the evolution of legal standards. The model’s claims are applied to and tested against the relevant empirical and legal literature. (JEL: D74, K10, K13, K41)

Comments

American Law and Economics Association Presidential Address of 2017

Published in American Law and Economics Review Fall 2022 issue

Updated with published version of article on 9/9/2023.

© The Author 2023

Recommended Citation

Keith N. Hylton, Information Costs and the Civil Justice System , in 24 American Law and Economics Review 407 (2023).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/411