The Demand for Public Adjudication and Private Arbitration

Abstract

There are a number of seemingly unrelated puzzles in the institutional and administrative structure of our legal system, such as why do courts not charge parties the full cost of adjudication, why courts adopt a system of stare decisis in the nineteenth century, and why the government refuse to expand the number of property forms for certain assets, such as real property. This article looks comprehensively at how these features of our modern legal system work together to achieve the government's goal of maximizing the positive externalities of litigation, while relegating lower valued disputes to other means of dispute settlement.

Keywords: Litigation Process, Legal Procedure, the Legal System, Property Law

JEL Classification: K41, K4, K11, K00, K1