Law Commons^™

Measuring The Deterrent Effect Of Punitive Damages, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Professor Viscusi's article differs from the dominant mode of law and economics scholarship on punitive damages. The usual punitive damages article contains purely theoretical considerations about when punitive damages are appropriate and about their optimal level; no effort is made to ascertain whether the existing pattern of punitive awards corresponds with the theory. This is part of a larger problem: the dearth of empirical evidence in law and economics scholarship. Viscusi, on the other hand, provides empirical tests of whether punitive damages accomplish their goals, and he makes creative use of publicly available data sources. For the goal of his …