IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/copoec/v29y2018i4d10.1007_s10602-018-9267-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Arbitration in classical Athens

Author

Listed:
  • Bryan C. McCannon

    (West Virginia University)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Bryan C. McCannon, 2018. "Arbitration in classical Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 413-423, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:29:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10602-018-9267-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10602-018-9267-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10602-018-9267-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10602-018-9267-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McCannon, Bryan C., 2010. "Homicide trials in Classical Athens," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 46-51, March.
    2. Bergh, Andreas & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus, 2014. "Measuring institutional quality in ancient Athens," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 279-310, June.
    3. Bryan C. McCannon, 2015. "Condorcet jury theorems," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 9, pages 140-160, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Marselli, Riccardo & McCannon, Bryan C. & Vannini, Marco, 2015. "Bargaining in the shadow of arbitration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 356-368.
    5. George Tridimas, 2012. "Constitutional choice in ancient Athens: the rationality of selection to office by lot," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-21, March.
    6. Tridimas, George, 2012. "How democracy was achieved," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 651-658.
    7. Kaiser, Brooks A., 2007. "The Athenian Trierarchy: Mechanism Design for the Private Provision of Public Goods," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 445-480, June.
    8. George Tridimas, 2016. "Conflict, democracy and voter choice: a public choice analysis of the Athenian ostracism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 137-159, October.
    9. Roger Congleton, 2007. "Informational limits to democratic public policy: The jury theorem, yardstick competition, and ignorance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 333-352, September.
    10. McCannon Bryan C., 2012. "The Origin of Democracy in Athens," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 531-562, October.
    11. Robert Fleck & F. Hanssen, 2009. "“Rulers ruled by women”: an economic analysis of the rise and fall of women’s rights in ancient Sparta," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 221-245, July.
    12. Bryan C. McCannon, 2017. "Who pays taxes? Liturgies and the Antidosis procedure in Ancient Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 407-421, December.
    13. Tridimas, George, 2015. "War, disenfranchisement and the fall of the ancient Athenian democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 102-117.
    14. McCannon, Bryan C., 2010. "The median juror and the trial of Socrates," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 533-540, December.
    15. Nicholas Kyriazis, 2009. "Financing the Athenian state: public choice in the age of Demosthenes," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 109-127, April.
    16. Bryan C. McCannon & Paul Walker, 2016. "Endogenous competence and a limit to the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 1-18, October.
    17. Fleck Robert K. & Hanssen F. Andrew, 2012. "On the Benefits and Costs of Legal Expertise: Adjudication in Ancient Athens," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 367-399, October.
    18. Bryan C. McCannon, 2011. "Jury Size in Classical Athens: an Application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 106-121, February.
    19. Fleck, Robert K & Hanssen, F Andrew, 2006. "The Origins of Democracy: A Model with Application to Ancient Greece," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(1), pages 115-146, April.
    20. Tullock, Gordon, 1971. "Public Decisions as Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(4), pages 913-918, July-Aug..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carl Hampus Lyttkens & George Tridimas & Anna Lindgren, 2018. "Making direct democracy work: a rational-actor perspective on the graphe paranomon in ancient Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 389-412, December.
    2. M. Vannini & B. Mccannon & R. Marselli & C. Detotto, 2022. "Experts and Arbitration Outcomes: Insights from Public Procurement Contract Disputes," Working Paper CRENoS 202204, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Federica Carugati & Josiah Ober & Barry R. Weingast, 2019. "Is development uniquely modern? Ancient Athens on the doorstep," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 29-47, October.
    2. Bryan C. McCannon, 2017. "Who pays taxes? Liturgies and the Antidosis procedure in Ancient Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 407-421, December.
    3. Tridimas, George, 2015. "War, disenfranchisement and the fall of the ancient Athenian democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 102-117.
    4. McCannon, Bryan C., 2010. "The median juror and the trial of Socrates," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 533-540, December.
    5. Bryan C. McCannon & Paul Walker, 2016. "Endogenous competence and a limit to the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 1-18, October.
    6. George Tridimas, 2016. "Conflict, democracy and voter choice: a public choice analysis of the Athenian ostracism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 137-159, October.
    7. Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros & Kyriazis, Nicholas & Zachilas, Loukas, 2016. "Interpreting sociopolitical change by using Chaos Theory: A lesson from Sparta and Athens," MPRA Paper 76117, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Robert K. Fleck & F. Andrew Hanssen, 2018. "Path dependence and transitions from tyranny to democracy: evidence from ancient Greece," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 371-388, December.
    9. McCannon Bryan C., 2012. "The Origin of Democracy in Athens," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 531-562, October.
    10. Economou Emmanouil M.L. & Kyriazis Nicholas C., 2016. "Choosing Peace Instead of War. A Lesson from Athenian Democracy," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 22(2), pages 191-212, April.
    11. Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Gerding, Henrik, 2015. "Understanding the Politics of Perikles Around 450 BC. The Benefits of an Economic Perspective," Working Papers 2015:13, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    12. George Tridimas, 2017. "Constitutional choice in ancient Athens: the evolution of the frequency of decision making," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 209-230, September.
    13. Pitsoulis, Athanassios, 2011. "The egalitarian battlefield: Reflections on the origins of majority rule in archaic Greece," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 87-103, March.
    14. Bryan C. McCannon & Joylynn Pruitt, 2018. "Taking on the boss: Informative contests in prosecutor elections," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 20(5), pages 657-671, October.
    15. Soeren C. Schwuchow & George Tridimas, 2022. "The political economy of Solon’s law against neutrality in civil wars," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 249-272, September.
    16. Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros & Kyriazis, Nicholas & Metaxas, Theodore, 2015. "The Themistocles Naval Decree of 483/2 BCE and the Greek Referendum of 2015: A comparative analysis of choice set under direct democracy procedures," MPRA Paper 76421, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Emmanouil M. L. Economou & Nicholas C. Kyriazis & Theodore Metaxas, 2017. "Ancient Athenians, Californians and Modern Greeks: A Comparative Analysis of Choice Set Under Direct Democracy Procedures," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 47-65, April.
    18. Kyriazis, Nicholas K. & Karayiannis, Anastassios D., 2011. "Democracy, Institutional Changes and Economic Development: The Case of Ancient Athens," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 61-91.
    19. Fleck Robert K. & Hanssen F. Andrew, 2012. "On the Benefits and Costs of Legal Expertise: Adjudication in Ancient Athens," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 367-399, October.
    20. Ober, Josiah, 2011. "Wealthy Hellas," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 1-38.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Arbitration; Athens; Competence; Condorcet Jury Theorem; Free riding; Group size;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:29:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10602-018-9267-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.