Libel Bullies, Defamation Victims, and Litigation Incentives

In the context of defamation law, we analyze a public figure's incentives to bring negative-value defamation suits in order to appear litigious, and how this affects her incentives to do wrong in the first place and the media's incentives to expose this wrongdoing. In equilibrium, the publ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of institutional and theoretical economics Vol. 177; no. Online First; pp. 1 - 166
Main Authors Acheson, David J., Wohlschlegel, Ansgar
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Tübingen Mohr Siebeck 01.06.2021
Subjects
Costs
Defamation
Equilibrium
Incentives
Journalism
Journalists
Legal fees
Legal reform
Libel
Libel and slander
Litigation
Political campaigns
Public figures
Reputations
Sex crimes
Victims
Wrongdoing
New York
United States > US
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Summary:In the context of defamation law, we analyze a public figure's incentives to bring negative-value defamation suits in order to appear litigious, and how this affects her incentives to do wrong in the first place and the media's incentives to expose this wrongdoing. In equilibrium, the public figure's litigation incentives depend both on her own direct costs and benefits of doing so, and on journalists' costs and benefits from litigation and publication. Furthermore, equilibrium wrongdoing and publication choices depend on an otherwise nonlitigious public figure's litigation payoffs. Potential effects of legal reform are briefly discussed.
ISSN:0932-4569
1614-0559
DOI:10.1628/jite-2021-0003