Rent Seeking and Bias in Appeals Systems

Tim Friehe and Ansgar Wohlschlegel

No 2017-01, Working Papers in Economics & Finance from University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group

Abstract: We analyze a litigation contest in which plaintiff and defendant seek to win in trial court, and the losing litigant may appeal. In our setup, the appeals court's judgment depends on the trial court's judgment, the merits of the litigants' arguments, and their efforts in the appeals stage. We find that the possibility of appeal increases the favorite's probability of winning as compared to that in a single-stage system, as the favorite has higher effort incentives in the first-instance authority than the underdog. Moreover, we show that the possibility of appeal may increase total rent-seeking efforts and make the case less likely to be tried, or that it surprisingly may have the opposite effects, and how the direction of these effects depends on the model parameters.

Keywords: Appeals; Litigation; Justice; Contest; Effort (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41
Date: 2017-03-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Rent Seeking and Bias in Appeals Systems (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pbs:ecofin:2017-01

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