Economic Analysis On Principia Of Liability Of Tort Law

This is the paper on law and economics, in which a special object, law, is analysed in an Economics perspective. As an inter-discipline, law and economics has been perfectly developed abroad, but it is just a new area in China. The studies mainly focus on recapitulative summary. The concrete analysis on branches of law has not yet been deeply done.Tort law belongs to the civil law in China. Tort law adjusts behaviors which are inflicting property and body. Principles of liability are the main points of legal research since they are the core and soul of tort law. The discussion on this topic is getting more heated along with the civil code being drafted in China. Many jurists put forward some worthy views by absorbing those research fruits from various subjects, such as the science of law, philosophy and sociology, etc. Principles of liability have not been studied systematically by means of the theory of law and economics, which gives the main motivity of writing this dissertation.In this dissertation, the theory of rational choice, cost-benefit theory, equational theory, and game theory are applied to analyze the issues put forward and discussed in this paper. All these theories and researching methods are fully or partly different from those of law, because justice is the soul of the latter, whereas efficiency the former. In my opinion legal efficiency should be emphasized in modern times.However, my research is not confined to the methods of economics. As well known, economics is a science which embraces many objects and legal issues can also be included in. The cost-benefit theory is regarded as the basis of this paper. Furthermore, the method of game theory, as the clue of the whole paper, is adopted to analyze the fault liability principle, strict liability principle and dual principle of liability. The analysis to the thesis is moving from abstract theory to concrete tortious conduct. Concretely speaking, the author has analyzed many issues such as the fault principle, strict liability, products liability, transportation liability and exculpatory incident. To explain the opinions of the author, some economic models are established. As it is the first time that models are used to analyze on principles of liability on tort law, it could be thought as the main contribution of the dissertation.The main conclusions and innovative points in the dissertation are as follows:1,to use the game theory to analyze the relationship among the three legal parties Compared with old methods, this dissertation not only regards conductors as the main players, but also takes the state as another main one in the light of game theory. State is on behalf of the power of the whole society and of the interests and wisdoms of the society. Therefore, state is a stronger player. Actually the game in tort law is the one that includes three parts of players. Players play game according to the law of one jurisdiction. The law represents state to make tactful choice according to the game among the players. The national regulation is often so slow that law seems static in a period of time. However, it is always changing from the perspective of history. From the angle of economics, the change is the rational adjustment of the law to adapt to the minimization of the social costs2,to analyze the dual system of liability by using game theoty , and to establish the dual system of liability, i.e., the fault principle and strict liability. It aims to widen the...