Economic Efficiency, Distributive Justice and Liability Rules

The main purpose of this paper is to show that the conflict between the considerations involving economic efficiency and those of distributive justice, in the context of assigning liability, is not as sharp as is generally believed to be the case. The condition of negligence liability which characterizes efficiency in the context of liability rules has an all-or-none character. Negligence liability requires that if one party is negligent and the other is not then the liability for the entire accident loss must fall on the negligent party. Thus within the framework of standard liability rules efficiency requirements preclude any non-efficiency considerations in cases where one party is negligent and the other is not. In this paper it is shown that a part of accident loss plays no part in providing appropriate incentives to the parties for taking due care and can therefore be apportioned on non-efficiency considerations. For a systematic analysis of efficiency requirements, a notion more general than that of a liability rule, namely, that of a decomposed liability rule is introduced. A complete characterization of efficient decomposed liability rules is provided in the paper. One important implication of the characterization theorems of this paper is that by decomposing accident loss in two parts, the scope for distributive considerations can be significantly broadened without sacrificing economic efficiency.Tort Law, Liability Rules, Decomposed liability Rules, Efficient Rules, Nash Equilibria, Negligence Liability, Distributive Justice

Method of producing high T(subc) superconducting NBN films

Thin films of niobium nitride with high superconducting temperature (T sub c) of 15.7 K are deposited on substrates held at room temperature (approx 90 C) by heat sink throughout the sputtering process. Films deposited at P sub Ar 12.9 + or - 0.2 mTorr exhibit higher T sub c with increasing P sub N2,I with the highest T sub c achieved at P sub n2,I= 3.7 + or - 0.2 mTorr and total sputtering pressure P sub tot = 16.6 + or - 0.4. Further increase of N2 injection starts decreasing T sub c

Treatability and Flow Path Studies in Bamboo Part I. Dendrocalamus Strictus Nees.

Bamboo is one of the strongest structural materials used in rural areas of developing countries. Because of its low durability, it often fails prematurely due to fungal, borer, and termite attack. Because of anatomical differences from both hardwoods and softwoods, difficulties in treatment have been encounterd and early failures in preservative treated bamboo often observed. The most important structures for flow of fluids are the vascular bundles. The vascular bundles occurring in the inner zone of the bamboo culm treat better than the vascular bundles at the periphery.Microscopic studies on the distribution of chemicals in Dendrocalamus strictus Nees. indicated that creosote: fuel oil penetrated more uniformly than water-soluble or organic solvent stains. The degree of penetration decreased with the increasing distance of other cells such as fibers and parenchyma tissues from the conducting vessels. At the microscopic level, treatability behavior improved from outer to inner zones along the wall thickness as well as from basal internodes to top internodes