on december 11, 2008, the united nations adopted the “convention on contracts for the international carriage of goods wholly or partly by sea”, more colloquially known as the “rotterdam rules” for the city which hosted the convention’s signing ceremony on september 23, 2009. rotterdam convention approved the “presumption of responsibility” as the basis of carrier’s responsibility and listed the...

This paper shows that polluters who underestimate environmental harm might invest excessively in promoting technological change in pollution control under environmental liability law. Neither strict liability nor negligence can prevent such a distortion. However, we define a second best due care standard under negligence that induces a welfare superior R&D equilibrium. If, on the other hand, po...

The purpose of this chapter is to compare negligence rules and strict liability rules and to examine the allocative effects resulting from the application of different liability regimes. It first discusses unilateral accidents, while the more complicated bilateral cases follow afterwards. Each section starts with a discussion of the rule of no liability before moving on to various forms of negl...

The archaeology of collective action addresses a widespread myth about the past–that premodern societies were despotic, and only produced public goods when everyday people convinced separate distinct ruling class to provide them. Archaeological evidence from Indus civilization (~2600–1900 BC), home first cities in South Asia, reveals that engaged remarkably egalitarian form governance coordinat...