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Trial Courts: An Economic Perspective

NCJ Number
125520
Journal
Law and Society Review Volume: 24 Issue: 2 Dated: (1990) Pages: 533-546
Author(s)
R D Cooter; D L Rubinfeld
Date Published
1990
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article describes economic research on models of legal disputes.
Abstract
Part I describes economic research on positive models of legal disputes. Elements of these positive models -- e.g., the concepts of rational choice and static equilibrium -- are implicit in the noneconomics research on courts, litigation, and dispute processing. In noneconomics research, the treatment of concepts to which economists would attempt to give a precise theoretical meaning is often unsystematic or imprecise. Part II critiques the longitudinal studies presented in this series of articles from an economist's perspective, illustrating problems of conceptualization and data analysis that arise from failure to make an underlying model more precise. Part III considers longitudinal research issues examined by economists: normative models of dispute resolution and the evolution and effects of judge-made law. The article concludes that economists have done a significant amount of modeling, but little testing; whereas, noneconomists have provided statistical description without theoretical explanations. A combination of improved socioeconomic theory and sound statistical analysis of trial courts is recommended. 18 footnotes.

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