The John M. Olin Center
Paper Abstract
749. Louis Kaplow, Likelihood Ratio Tests and Legal Decision Rules, 06/2013; forthcoming in American Law and Economics Review.
Abstract: Various legal decision-making criteria can be formulated as likelihood ratio tests, wherein liability, prohibition, or other outcomes are associated with evidence strength exceeding a posited threshold. Stating rules in this manner clarifies their nature, facilitates the comparison of conventional and optimal rules as well as the identification of differences between rules across contexts, and provides further illumination in instances in which a decision standard is not truly a likelihood ratio test.