Emotions in Civil Litigation

Ben Chen and José Rodrigues-Neto

ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics from Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics

Abstract: In a civil-litigation game, monetary and emotional variables motivate a plaintiff and a defendant simultaneously to exert costly efforts; the emotional variables capture their relational emotions toward each other, and a non-monetary joy of winning. Based on the litigants’ efforts and exogenous relative advantages, a generally-formulated success function gives their probabilities of success. A cost-shifting rule shifts a proportion of the winner’s costs to the loser. In equilibrium, negative relational emotions (but not positive joy of winning) amplify the effects of cost shifting. Negative relational emotions increase the equilibrium relative effort and probability of success of the more advantageous litigant.

Keywords: relative payoffs; non-monetary joy of winning; interdependent preferences; litigation; contest theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C79 D91 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2017-653

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