The British and American Rules: an Experimental Examination of Pre‐trial Bargaining in the Shadowof the Law

Brian G. M. Main and Andrew Park

Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 2000, vol. 47, issue 1, 37-60

Abstract: A commonly held view is that the frequency and value of pre‐trial settlements in civil disputes are greatly influenced by the cost allocation regime that is in place if the case goes to trial. There is a large and growing theoretical literature on this subject but almost no empirical evidence. This is due simply to the scarcity of relevant data owing to the confidentiality generally associated with such matters. However, the area is an ideal one to analyse experimentally. In this paper we consider the effect of the British and American rules for cost allocation using such an experimental methodology. We find that the two rules produce no difference in the frequency of pre‐trial settlements but that the British rule produces higher settlements (pro‐pursuer) if the probability of the pursuer winning is large.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9485.00152

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:47:y:2000:i:1:p:37-60

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0036-9292

Access Statistics for this article

Scottish Journal of Political Economy is currently edited by Tim Barmby, Andrew Hughes-Hallett and Campbell Leith

More articles in Scottish Journal of Political Economy from Scottish Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().