Does Disputing Through Agents Enhance Cooperation? Experimental Evidence

Abstract

A distinctive characteristic of our formal mechanisms for conflict resolution is that litigation is carried out by agents chosen by the disputing principals. Does the fact that clients choose lawyers to carry on their disputes facilitate dispute resolution or instead exacerbate conflict? The dominant contemporary view is that the involvement of lawyers magnifies the inherent contentiousness of litigation and typically leads to wasting social resources by prolonging and escalating the conflict in ways that may enrich the legal profession but not the clients. But in a recent article, Gilson and Mnookin suggested another possibility: by choosing lawyers with reputations for cooperation, clients might be able to commit to cooperative litigation strategies in circumstances where the clients themselves would not otherwise trust each other. Using the methodology of experimental economics, this paper presents the result of our test of their idea that by choosing cooperative agents under well specified procedures, principals may be able to cooperate more often than they could do on their own. Our experimental findings are consistent with the Gilson-Mnookin hypothesis.

JEL Classification: K40