製造物責任原則과 Coase Theorem

Product Liability Rule and Coase Theorem

This article attempts to analyze conditions that efficiency in resource allocation is unaffected by the rules of product liability, regardless of legislative liability rule between the parties. We prove that the Cease Theorem stating an efficiency to be unaffected by liability rule can be extensively applied to income distribution in the case of product liability. We also show that product liability has a characteristic that there exist transaction mechanism of the riskiness between producer and consumer, so that the risk premium can be negotiated through prices. 'This leads to the conclusion that under the rule of product liability if consumer has a perfect information for the product, any liability rule can reach pareto optimum, thus the distribution in surplus between the consumer and the producer will not be affected by being risk averse or not. It shows, thereforem, that how much informations consumers have is the crucial factor of relative efficiency of liability rules and that risk averseness, market imperfection in the insurance and the possibility of the 3rd injurer occurrence are the supplementary factors to determine the efficiency.