IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/59424.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Appeals Process and Incentives to Settle

Author

Listed:
  • Wohlschlegel, Ansgar

Abstract

This paper analyzes asymmetrically informed litigants' incentives to settle when they anticipate the possibility of appeals. It identifies a strategic effect, which induces a litigant to negotiate pretrial so as to optimize her posttrial bargaining position, and an information effect, which means that litigants will take into account pretrial how the information revealed by the trial court's verdict will translate into posttrial equilibrium payoffs. The paper's main contribution is twofold: First, it establishes a workhorse model of settlement and litigation in the shadow of appeals which may be used in future research to analyze specific issues of litigation and legal reform. Second, the importance of including the possibility of appeals in the litigation model is highlighted by an example in which some results contradict the immediate intuition: It is shown that (i) more accurate trial courts may actually attract less cases and (ii) cases may go to trial court with a larger ex-ante probability for higher legal costs in the appeals stage.

Suggested Citation

  • Wohlschlegel, Ansgar, 2014. "The Appeals Process and Incentives to Settle," MPRA Paper 59424, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:59424
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/59424/1/MPRA_paper_59424.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven Shavell, 2010. "On the Design of the Appeals Process: The Optimal Use of Discretionary Review versus Direct Appeal," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 63-108, January.
    2. Spier, Kathryn E, 1994. "Settlement Bargaining and the Design of Damage Awards," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 84-95, April.
    3. Shavell, Steven, 1999. "The level of litigation: private versus social optimality of suit and of settlement," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 99-115, March.
    4. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter, 2001. "Information aggregation in debate: who should speak first?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 393-421, September.
    5. Claudia M. Landeo & Maxim Nikitin & Scott Baker, 2007. "Deterrence, Lawsuits, and Litigation Outcomes Under Court Errors," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 57-97, April.
    6. Alex Robson & Stergios Skaperdas, 2008. "Costly enforcement of property rights and the Coase theorem," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 36(1), pages 109-128, July.
    7. Butler, Monika & Hauser, Heinz, 2000. "The WTO Dispute Settlement System: First Assessment from an Economic Perspective," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 503-533, October.
    8. Steven Shavell, 2007. "Optimal Discretion in the Application of Rules," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 9(1), pages 175-194.
    9. Kathryn E. Spier, 1992. "The Dynamics of Pretrial Negotiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 93-108.
    10. Shavell, Steven, 1995. "The Appeals Process as a Means of Error Correction," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(2), pages 379-426, June.
    11. Barry Nalebuff, 1987. "Credible Pretrial Negotiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(2), pages 198-210, Summer.
    12. Hylton, Keith N., 2002. "An asymmetric-information model of litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 153-175, August.
    13. Elisabetta Iossa & Giuliana Palumbo, 2007. "Information Provision and Monitoring of the Decision-Maker in the Presence of an Appeal Process," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(4), pages 657-682, December.
    14. Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 1984. "Litigation and Settlement under Imperfect Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(3), pages 404-415, Autumn.
    15. Oliver Hart, 1989. "Bargaining and Strikes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 25-43.
    16. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2000. "Appealing Judgments," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(3), pages 502-526, Autumn.
    17. Steven Shavell, 2006. "The Appeals Process and Adjudicator Incentives," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 1-29, January.
    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. At Christian & Friehe Tim & Gabuthy Yannick, 2019. "On Lawyer Compensation When Appeals Are Possible," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-11, April.

    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. Koçkesen, Levent & Usman, Murat, 2012. "Litigation and settlement under judicial agency," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 300-308.
    2. Bertrand Chopard & Edwige Marion & Ludivine Roussey, 2014. "Does the Appeals Process Lower the Occurrence of Legal Errors?," EconomiX Working Papers 2014-43, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    3. Maria Antonelli & Veronica Grembi, 2013. "A microeconomic model of the demand of civil justice: is one institutional context better than another?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 295-318, October.
    4. Hüschelrath, Kai & Smuda, Florian, 2014. "The appeals process: An empirical assessment," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-063, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Swanson, Timothy & Mason, Robin, 1998. "Nonbargaining in the shadow of the law," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 121-140, June.
    6. Andrew F. Daughety & Reinganum F. Reinganum, 2014. "Settlement and Trial: Selected Analyses of the Bargaining Environment," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 14-00005, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    7. Michael Hellwig & Kai Hüschelrath & Ulrich Laitenberger, 2018. "Settlements and Appeals in the European Commission’s Cartel Cases: An Empirical Assessment," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(1), pages 55-84, February.
    8. Florian Smuda & Patrice Bougette & Kai Hüschelrath, 2015. "Determinants of the Duration of European Appellate Court Proceedings in Cartel Cases," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(6), pages 1352-1369, November.
    9. Chopard, Bertrand & Cortade, Thomas & Langlais, Eric, 2010. "Trial and settlement negotiations between asymmetrically skilled parties," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 18-27, March.
    10. Heyes, Anthony & Rickman, Neil & Tzavara, Dionisia, 2004. "Legal expenses insurance, risk aversion and litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 107-119, March.
    11. Aspasia Tsaoussi & Eleni Zervogianni, 2010. "Judges as satisficers: a law and economics perspective on judicial liability," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 333-357, June.
    12. Choné, Philippe & Linnemer, Laurent, 2010. "Optimal litigation strategies with observable case preparation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 271-288, November.
    13. Argenton, Cedric & Wang, Xiaoyu, 2020. "Litigation and Settlement under Loss Aversion," Discussion Paper 2020-008, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    14. Pao-Li Chang, 2002. "The Evolution and Utilization of the GATT/WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism," Working Papers 475, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    15. Christian Helmers & Yassine Lefouili & Brian J Love & Luke McDonagh, 2021. "The Effect of Fee Shifting on Litigation: Evidence from a Policy Innovation in Intermediate Cost Shifting," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 23(1), pages 56-99.
    16. Landeo, Claudia M. & Nikitin, Maxim, 2018. "Financially-constrained lawyers: An economic theory of legal disputes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 625-647.
    17. Ormosi, Peter L., 2012. "Tactical dilatory practice in litigation: Evidence from EC merger proceedings," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 370-377.
    18. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 1995. "Keeping Society in the Dark: On the Admissibility of Pretrial Negotiations as Evidence in Court," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(2), pages 203-221, Summer.
    19. Friehe, Tim & Pham, Cat Lam, 2021. "Accident avoidance and settlement bargaining: The role of reciprocity," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    20. Dari-Mattiacci, Giuseppe & Saraceno, Margherita, 2020. "Fee shifting and accuracy in adjudication," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Litigation; settlement; appeals; sequential bargaining; asymmetric information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:59424. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.