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American Law and Economics Review V2 N1 2000 (170-194)
© 2000 American Law and Economics Association

Article

An experimental comparison of adversarial versus inquisitorial procedural regimes

MK Block1, JS Parker2,z, O Vyborna3 and L Dusek4

1 University of Arizona, AZ, USA
2 George Mason University School of Law, 3401 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201, USA
3 Prague, Czech Republic
4 Liberal Institute, Prague, Czech Republic
z Corresponding author
Fax: (703) 993 8088
E-mail: jparke3@gmu.edu

Abstract

This article reports the results of a multiyear series of economic experiments comparing the two dominant types of legal procedures used in adjudication: (1) the 'adversarial' model of party-controlled procedure versus (2) the 'inquisitorial' model of judge-controlled procedure. The principal finding is that the relative fact-finding efficiency of the two systems, in terms of both the 'revelation' of hidden facts and the 'accuracy' of decision, depends significantly upon the information structure. Under a 'private' information structure, inquisitorial procedure is relatively more efficient, whereas under a 'correlated' information structure, adversarial procedure is relatively more efficient.


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