Arbitration in classical Athens

Bryan McCannon

Constitutional Political Economy, 2018, vol. 29, issue 4, No 3, 413-423

Abstract: Abstract The Classical Athenians developed two formal arbitration procedures. They assigned low stakes disputes to a panel of arbitrators, while high stakes cases were handled by a single arbitrator. Given the information aggregation benefit of collective decision making, one would have expected more individuals to be assigned to more important cases. I develop a theoretical model to provide an explanation for their design. Recognizing that arbitrator competence is endogenous, effort put into making a good decision takes time and effort. In larger groups free riding is a concern. Consequently, there exists environments where the free-riding loss is magnified in higher stakes disputes to the point where the socially optimal panel size is inversely related to the stakes involved.

Keywords: Arbitration; Athens; Competence; Condorcet Jury Theorem; Free riding; Group size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H1 K4 N44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10602-018-9267-0

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