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Liability Insurance under the Negligence Rule

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  • Marie-Cécile Fagart
  • Claude Fluet

Abstract

We analyze the efficiency properties of the negligence rule with liability insurance, when the tort-feasor's behavior is imperfectly observable both by the insurer and the court. Efficiency is shown to depend on the extent to which the evidence is informative, on the evidentiary standard for finding negligence, and on whether insurance contracts can condition directly on the same evidence as used by courts to assess behavior. When evidence is not directly contractible, the negligence rule with compensatory damages is generally inefficient and can be improved by decoupling liability from the harm suffered by the victim.

Suggested Citation

  • Marie-Cécile Fagart & Claude Fluet, 2007. "Liability Insurance under the Negligence Rule," Cahiers de recherche 0730, CIRPEE.
    • Handle: RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0730
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. BOYER, Marcel & PORRINI, Donatella, 2010. "Optimal Liability Sharing and Court Errors : An Exploratory Analysis," Cahiers de recherche 05-2010, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    2. Alfred Endres & Tim Friehe, 2012. "Market Power in the Eco-industry: Polluters’ Incentives under Environmental Liability Law," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 88(1), pages 121-138.
    3. Dionne, Georges & Michaud, Pierre-Carl & Pinquet, Jean, 2013. "A review of recent theoretical and empirical analyses of asymmetric information in road safety and automobile insurance," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 85-97.
    4. Fluet, Claude, 2020. "L'économie de la preuve judiciaire," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 96(4), pages 585-620, Décembre.
    5. Dionne, Georges & Harrington, Scott, 2017. "Insurance and Insurance Markets," Working Papers 17-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    6. Jean‐Marc Bourgeon & Pierre Picard, 2020. "Insurance law and incomplete contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(4), pages 1253-1286, December.
    7. Donald J., Wright, 2011. "Medical malpractice and physician liability under a negligence rule," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 205-211, September.
    8. Georges Dionne & Jean Pinquet & Mathieu Maurice & Charles Vanasse, 2011. "Incentive Mechanisms for Safe Driving: A Comparative Analysis with Dynamic Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 218-227, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Negligence; liability insurance; evidentiary standard; moral hazard; judicial error; decoupling; prudence;
    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
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

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