Testing the lawyer-induced litigation hypothesis in Europe

Samantha Bielen and Wim Marneffe

Applied Economics, 2018, vol. 50, issue 16, 1837-1851

Abstract: Utilizing a European panel dataset, we contribute to the scant empirical literature on the lawyer-induced litigation hypothesis. To address endogeneity problems that arise when estimating the effect of the number of lawyers on civil litigation rates, we use two strategies. We first estimate our model by means of the 2SLS procedure. Second, we exploit the instrumental variable approach based on the linear GMM estimator of Arellano and Bond. The estimations result in a positive and significant effect of lawyers that is robust across the different model specifications and estimation methods in which we address endogeneity. In criminal litigation, where lawyers cannot induce demand, we find no such positive relation between lawyers and litigation.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2017.1374544

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