IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/exe/wpaper/1801.html

Tort Liability and Unawareness

Author

Listed:
  • Surajeet Chakravarty

    (Department of Economics, University of Exeter)

  • David Kelsey

    (Department of Economics, University of Exeter)

  • Joshua C. Teitelbaum

    (Georgetown University)

Abstract

Unawareness is a form of bounded rationality where a person fails to conceive all feasible acts or consequences or to perceive as feasible all conceivable act-consequence links. We study the implications of unawareness for tort law, where relevant examples include the discovery of a new product or technology (new act), of a new disease or injury (new consequence), or that a product can cause an injury (new link). We argue that negligence has an important advantage over strict liability in a world with unawareness–negligence, through the stipulation of due care standards, spreads awareness about the updated probability of harm.

Suggested Citation

  • Surajeet Chakravarty & David Kelsey & Joshua C. Teitelbaum, 2018. "Tort Liability and Unawareness," Discussion Papers 1801, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:exe:wpaper:1801
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://exetereconomics.github.io/RePEc/dpapers/DP1801.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    • Surajeet Chakravarty & David Kelsey & Joshua C. Teitelbaum, 2024. "Tort Liability And Unawareness," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(4), pages 1851-1876, November.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher P. Chambers & Takashi Hayashi, 2018. "Reverse Bayesianism: A Comment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 315-324, February.
    2. Edi Karni & Marie-Louise Vier?, 2013. ""Reverse Bayesianism": A Choice-Based Theory of Growing Awareness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 2790-2810, December.
    3. Chateauneuf, Alain & Eichberger, Jurgen & Grant, Simon, 2007. "Choice under uncertainty with the best and worst in mind: Neo-additive capacities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 538-567, November.
    4. Steven Shavell, 1984. "A Model of the Optimal Use of Liability and Safety Regulation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(2), pages 271-280, Summer.
    5. Joshua C. Teitelbaum & Kathryn Zeiler (ed.), 2018. "Research Handbook on Behavioral Law and Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14176.
    6. Steven Shavell, 1982. "On Liability and Insurance," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(1), pages 120-132, Spring.
    7. Grant, Simon & Kline, J. Jude & Quiggin, John, 2012. "Differential awareness, ambiguity, and incomplete contracts: A model of contractual disputes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 494-504.
    8. Ott, Claus & Schafer, Hans-Bernd, 1997. "Negligence as untaken precaution, limited information, and efficient standard formation in the civil liability system," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 15-29, March.
    9. Peter A. Diamond, 1974. "Accident Law and Resource Allocation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 5(2), pages 366-405, Autumn.
    10. Kim-Sau Chung & Oliver Board, 2007. "Object-Based Unawareness," Working Papers 2007-2, University of Minnesota, Department of Economics, revised 24 Aug 2007.
    11. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Law and Economics," Handbook of Law and Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    12. Eddie Dekel & Barton L. Lipman & Aldo Rustichini, 1998. "Standard State-Space Models Preclude Unawareness," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 159-174, January.
    13. Luigi Alberto Franzoni, 2017. "Liability Law under Scientific Uncertainty," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 19(2), pages 327-360.
    14. Zhao, Xiaojian, 2011. "Framing contingencies in contracts," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 31-40, January.
    15. Heidhues, Paul & Koszegi, Botond & Strack, Philipp, 2021. "Convergence in models of misspecified learning," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(1), January.
    16. Ernst-Ludwig Thadden & Xiaojian Zhao, 2014. "Multi-task agency with unawareness," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 77(2), pages 197-222, August.
    17. Feess, Eberhard & Wohlschlegel, Ansgar, 2006. "Liability and information transmission: The advantage of negligence based rules," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 63-67, July.
    18. Halpern, Joseph Y., 2001. "Alternative Semantics for Unawareness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 321-339, November.
    19. Karni, Edi & Vierø, Marie-Louise, 2017. "Awareness of unawareness: A theory of decision making in the face of ignorance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 301-328.
    20. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Law and Economics," Handbook of Law and Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    21. Burkhard Schipper, 2014. "Unawareness - A Gentle Introduction to both the Literature and the Special Issue," Working Papers 145, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    22. Joshua C. Teitelbaum, 2007. "A Unilateral Accident Model under Ambiguity," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 431-477, June.
    23. Ernst-Ludwig Von Thadden & Xiaojian Zhao, 2012. "Incentives for Unaware Agents," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1151-1174.
    24. Auster, Sarah, 2013. "Asymmetric awareness and moral hazard," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 503-521.
    25. Demougin, Dominique & Fluet, Claude, 1999. "A further justification for the negligence rule," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 33-45, March.
    26. Modica, Salvatore & Rustichini, Aldo, 1999. "Unawareness and Partitional Information Structures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 265-298, May.
    27. Chakravarty, Surajeet & Kelsey, David & Teitelbaum, Joshua C., 2022. "Reverse Bayesianism and act independence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    28. Surajeet Chakravarty & David Kelsey, 2017. "Ambiguity and Accident Law," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(1), pages 97-120, February.
    29. Burkhard Schipper, 2014. "Unawareness - A Gentle Introduction to both the Literature and the Special Issue," Working Papers 153, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    30. Oliver J. Board & Kim-Sau Chung, 2022. "Object-based unawareness: Theory and applications," The Journal of Mechanism and Institution Design, Society for the Promotion of Mechanism and Institution Design, University of York, vol. 7(1), pages 1-43, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Surajeet Chakravarty & David Kelsey & Joshua C. Teitelbaum, 2020. "Operationalizing Reverse Bayesianism," Discussion Papers 2020-18, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    2. Chakravarty, Surajeet & Kelsey, David & Teitelbaum, Joshua C., 2022. "Reverse Bayesianism and act independence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    3. Wenjun Ma & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2017. "Does exposure to unawareness affect risk preferences? A preliminary result," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(2), pages 245-257, August.
    4. Áron Tóbiás, 2023. "Cognitive limits and preferences for information," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 46(1), pages 221-253, June.
    5. Auster, Sarah, 2013. "Asymmetric awareness and moral hazard," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 503-521.
    6. Karni, Edi & Vierø, Marie-Louise, 2017. "Awareness of unawareness: A theory of decision making in the face of ignorance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 301-328.
    7. Fukuda, Satoshi, 2021. "Unawareness without AU Introspection," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    8. Rafael R. Guthmann, 2025. "Imperfect Competition as a Result of Unawareness," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 67(1), pages 35-53, June.
    9. Holliday, Wesley H., 2025. "A partial-state space model of unawareness," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    10. Gaia Belardinelli & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2023. "Implicit Knowledge in Unawareness Structures," Working Papers 360, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    11. L. A. Franzoni, 2016. "Optimal liability design under risk and ambiguity," Working Papers wp1048, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    12. Antoine Dubus, 2020. "Asymmetric awareness and heterogeneous agents," Rationality and Society, , vol. 32(4), pages 461-484, November.
    13. Dominiak, Adam & Tserenjigmid, Gerelt, 2022. "Ambiguity under growing awareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    14. Gérard Mondello, 2013. "Ambiguous Beliefs on Damages and Civil Liability Theories"," Post-Print halshs-00929948, HAL.
    15. Wenjun Ma & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2017. "Does exposure to unawareness affect risk preferences? A preliminary result," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(2), pages 245-257, August.
    16. Sarah Auster, 2012. "Asymmetric Awareness and Moral Hazard," Economics Working Papers ECO2012/23, European University Institute.
    17. Becker, Christoph K. & Melkonyan, Tigran & Proto, Eugenio & Sofianos, Andis & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2020. "Reverse Bayesianism: Revising Beliefs in Light of Unforeseen Events," IZA Discussion Papers 13821, IZA Network @ LISER.
    18. Spyros Galanis, 2011. "Syntactic foundations for unawareness of theorems," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 593-614, October.
    19. Fiorini, Luciana C. & Rodrigues-Neto, José A., 2017. "Self-consistency, consistency and cycles in non-partitional knowledge models," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 11-21.
    20. Adam Dominiak & Ani Guerdjikova, 2021. "Pessimism and optimism towards new discoveries," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 90(3), pages 321-370, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics

    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:exe:wpaper:1801. 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: Sebastian Kripfganz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deexeuk.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.