June 30, 2005

Eric Helland, Jonathan Klick and Alexander Tabarrok have written an article for the Spring 2005 edition of the American Economics Association's Journal of Economic Perspectives. Its abstract:

This article discusses data available for researchers interested in the U.S. civil justice system and illustrates the uses of the various datasets with some interesting findings. Our focus is on torts, defined as an injury to person or property that is not covered by contract and for which civil liability may be imposed. The most common tort is the result of an auto accident. We discuss data useful for analyzing trends, data that are useful for cross-sectional research and finally data covering only a specific type of civil litigation such as medical malpractice. We conclude by discussing the limitations of all civil litigation data.

Unless you're an AEA member, it's available only on a pay basis.