Suppose the law says that parking garages are liable for whatever damages occur on the premises. However, there’s a big loophole: Garages can disclaim liability by posting a big “ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK” sign. What happens?
Non-economists usually conclude that every parking garage will post the sign to save money. But if you remember the economics of adverse selection, this is a puzzling conclusion. After all, which garages will be most eager to disclaim? The garages that do a terrible job of protecting their customers’ property. So what should customers conclude about the first garage that avails itself of its right to disclaim? That the firm is a “lemon” so they should park their cars elsewhere. If firms anticipate this inference, even high-risk garages have a clear incentive not to disclaim.
In the real world, of course, we see firms disclaiming liability all the time. Why on earth would they do so despite adverse selection?
One possibility is that customers systematically underestimate the risk of damage, but firms don’t. This is surely true in some cases, but it contradicts a vast literature on the psychology of risk showing that people often overestimate risks.
The better explanation is that real-world liability systems are incredibly inefficient. Suppose the typical lawsuit costs the defendant $100,000 but only enriches the plaintiff by $10,000. With a .1% accident risk, a firm’s expected liability is $100, but a customer’s expected damages are only $10. A firm that disclaimed liability and cut the price of parking by $30 would make customers $20 richer and itself $70 richer.
What about the adverse selection problem? The more inefficient the legal system, the easier adverse selection is to solve. Suppose that in the preceding example, the first firm to waive liability has double the normal risk. Waiving liability would alert customers to this unpleasant fact. But as long as the the firm cuts the price of parking by more than the customer’s expected $20 damages, disclaimers enrich both sides.
Regulators are usually loathe to allow disclaimers. Imagine how the U.S. government would react if an employer bypassed worker safety and discrimination laws with a “WORK AT YOUR OWN RISK” sign at the employee’s entrance. If pressed to justify their reluctance, regulators would probably respond, “Disclaimers would effectively gut the law.” They’re probably right. The upshot, though, is that the laws regulators are so eager to preserve are absurdly wasteful. If virtually every firm disclaims despite the adverse selection problem, the liability regime must be very inefficient indeed.
READER COMMENTS
nl7
Jan 27 2014 at 10:23am
People tend to pick parking garages, workplaces, and everything else based mostly on factors unrelated to allocation of legal liability. Sure, some people will want certain vendors or partners to be insured against certain risks. But as a general rule, people don’t rank liability high on their list. Which suggests it’s not terribly valuable to them (ex ante). The rules are written to force most customers and workers to accept a situation where liability is allocated against the other contracting party, a situation that benefits victims ex post and their advocates who profit from collecting the liability.
MikeP
Jan 27 2014 at 2:12pm
People looking to park their cars are not experts in the law. They almost certainly have no idea that the absence of the sign means the garage is responsible for damage. On the contrary, people — and garages — generally believe crazily that the auto insurance company is responsible for damage!
The garage that wants to profit from this gap in information will advertise their extra security and charge for it. It doesn’t actually matter what the law is. If you see garages advertising “guaranteed security” or the like, then you will know that is efficient. If you don’t, then you can suspect that comprehensive auto insurance is more efficient.
Daniel Klein
Jan 27 2014 at 5:02pm
Very nice post.
If I remember rightly, Charles Murray proposed allowing such disclaiming for all liability law and so-called consumer protection restrictions, in What It Means to Be a Libertarian.
The proposal makes a lot of sense.
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