Adversarial decision-making: Choosing between models constructed by interested parties

Luke Froeb, Bernhard Ganglmair () and Steven Tschantz

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: In this paper, we characterize adversarial decision-making as a choice between competing interpretations of evidence ("models") constructed by interested parties. We show that if a court cannot perfectly determine which party's model is more likely to have generated the evidence, then adversaries face a tradeoff: a model further away from the best (most likely) interpretation has a lower probability of winning, but also a higher payoff following a win. We characterize equilibrium when both adversaries construct optimal models, and use the characterization to compare adversarial decision-making to an inquisitorial benchmark. We find that adversarial decisions are biased, and the bias favors the party with the less-likely, and more extreme, interpretation of the evidence. Court bias disappears when the court is better able to distinguish between the likelihoods of the competing models, or as the amount of evidence grows.

Keywords: adversarial justice; evidence-based decision-making; expert testimony; inquisitorial justice; litigation; persuasion games; science vs. advocacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D74 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-law and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Adversarial Decision Making: Choosing between Models Constructed by Interested Parties (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:71501

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