Evidence Production in Adversarial vs. Inquisitorial Regimes

11 Pages Posted: 7 Apr 2000

See all articles by Luke M. Froeb

Luke M. Froeb

Vanderbilt University - Owen Graduate School of Management

Bruce H. Kobayashi

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School

Abstract

The advantage of the adversarial regime of judicial decision-making is the superior information of the parties while the advantage of an idealized inquisitorial regime is its neutrality. We model the tradeoff by characterizing the properties of costly estimators used by each regime. The adversarial regime uses an ?extremal? estimator that is based on the difference between the most favorable pieces of evidence produced by each party. The inquisitorial regime uses the sample mean. We find that neither regime dominates the other.

JEL Classification: K41, D83

Suggested Citation

Froeb, Luke M. and Kobayashi, Bruce H., Evidence Production in Adversarial vs. Inquisitorial Regimes. Economics Letters, Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 267-272, February 2001, Vanderbilt Law School, Joe C. Davis Working Paper No. 99-13, George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 00-19, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=179182 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.179182

Luke M. Froeb (Contact Author)

Vanderbilt University - Owen Graduate School of Management ( email )

401 21st Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203
United States
615-322-9057 (Phone)
615-343-7177 (Fax)

Bruce H. Kobayashi

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School ( email )

3301 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
United States
703-993-8034 (Phone)
703-993-8088 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://mason.gmu.edu/~bkobayas

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