Lawyers as Agents of the Devil in a Prisoner's Dilemma Game

Orley Ashenfelter and David Bloom

No 650, Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to explore the possibility that the costs and benefits of legal representation are structured so that each individual party seeks legal representation in the hope of exploiting the other party, while knowing full well that failing to do so will open up the possibility of being exploited. The first part of the paper shows how the structure of the incentives faced by the parties may be estimated, and the second describes the results of empirical tests in several different settings. The empirical results strongly suggest that the parties do face "prisoner's dilemma" incentives, although no attempt is made to determine whether the parties respond to these incentives.

Keywords: lawyers; arbitration system; prisoner's dilemma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1990-09
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Lawyers as Agents of the Devil in a Prisoner's Dilemma Game (2013)
Working Paper: Lawyers as Agents of the Devil in a Prisoner's Dilemma Game (2013)
Working Paper: Lawyers as Agents of the Devil in a Prisoner's Dilemma Game (1993)
Working Paper: LAWYERS AS AGENTS OF THE DEVIL IN A PRISONER'S DILEMMA GAME (1990)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:indrel:270

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