Labour Disputes and the Game of Legal Representation

Henri Fraisse

No 3084, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This paper explores the prisoner’s dilemma that may result when workers and firms are involved in labour disputes and must decide whether to hire a lawyer to be represented at trial. Using a representative data set of labour disputes in the UK and a large population of French unfair dismissal cases, we find that a lawyer substantially increases the firm’s probability of winning at trial but has little effect on the worker’s victory probability. The UK data contain award and litigation costs and allow us to compute the pay-off matrix. We do not find evidence of a prisoner’s dilemma, given that the total pay-off for the worker is not significantly different whether she is represented or not. Surprisingly, the dominant strategy for the firm is not to be represented.

Keywords: litigation; lawyers; labour dispute resolution; prisoner's dilemma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J52 J53 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3084

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