Efficient Awards and Standards of Proof in Judicial Proceedings

Daniel L. Rubinfeld and David Sappington

RAND Journal of Economics, 1987, vol. 18, issue 2, 308-315

Abstract: We view the court system as an institution that enables defendants to signal their innocence or guilt, and we examine how the court can optimally minimize expected social losses from errors of type I and type II and from expenditures by defendants. Two of the policy instruments assumed available to the court are the standard of proof of one's innocence and the penalty imposed on a defendant who fails to meet the standard. Our analysis focuses on the effects that variations in the levels of these instruments have on the expenditures of defendants.

Date: 1987
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