Market Structure, Information and Litigation with Application to Product Safety and Environmental Quality

该项目的目标是将法律制度的各个方面的模型与寡头垄断模型相结合，以便更完整地描述企业的经济和法律环境的各种特征如何影响他们在产品质量、安全和环境质量方面的决策。特别是，经济和法律环境的四个特征将被审查：(1)产品市场的市场结构；（二）谁因生产、使用产品而受益，谁可能受到损害；(3)在发生损害时影响和解谈判和/或审判结果的法律规则；(4)产品开发、测试、销售和使用参与者之间以及产品造成损害时潜在诉讼当事人之间信息不对称的影响。所使用的方法包括应用博弈论和信息经济学。预期应用包括具有潜在副作用的治疗药物等产品和副产物问题，如化学“径流”（例如，除草剂/杀虫剂、酸雨和臭氧消耗），可能对环境和第三方产生广泛的毒性作用。

The objective of this project is to integrate models of various aspects of the legal system with oligopoly models in order to obtain a more complete description of how various features of the firms' economic and legal environment influence their decision- making with respect to product quality, safety and environmental quality. In particular, four features of the economic and legal environment will be examined: (1) market structure in the product market; (2) who benefits and who is potentially harmed by the production and use of the product; (3) legal rules which influence the outcome of settlement negotiations and/or trial in the event of harm; and (4) the impact of asymmetric information among participants in the product's development, testing, sale and use, and among potential litigants in the event that the product causes harm. The methods to be used include applied game theory and information economics. Intended applications include products such as therapeutic drugs with potential side effects and by-product problems such as chemical "runoff" (e.g., herbicides/pesticides, acid rain and ozone depletion) with the potential for generalized toxic effects on the environment and on third parties.