 The impact of the number of courts on the demand for trialsNathalie Chappe and Marie Obidzinski International Review of Law and Economics, 2014, vol. 37, issue C, 121-125 Abstract: The recent reforms of the “judicial map” in Europe have drastically reduced the number of courts, raising fears of a decline in access to justice. This paper addresses this issue through a litigation model within a Salop (1979) framework. We assume that victims of accidents differ both in terms of compensatory damages expected and in terms of distance from court. Due to distance costs, it might be too expensive to file cases for some victims with low expected awards. We show that the link between the number of courts and the demand for trials is not clear cut when the probability of an accident occurring is determined by the defendant through his level of care. Reducing the number of courts can, under certain conditions, increases the amount of care taken by the defendant. Keywords: Litigation; Number of courts; Distance costs; Access to justice (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:37:y:2014:i:c:p:121-125 DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2013.09.002 Access Statistics for this article International Review of Law and Economics is currently edited by C. Ott, A. W. Katz and H-B. Schäfer More articles in International Review of Law and Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.