Institute of Law and Economics - University of Hamburg

10/04/2026

Roee Sarel has published a book chapter on AI Defects in the New Product Liability Directive. The chapter combines doctrinal analysis and Law & Economics, analyzing how the EU's directive governs defective AI products, how the conditions triggering a presumption of a defect affects incentives, and whether the division of liability across different actors in the AI's lifecycle is efficient. The published version can be found here: http://doi.org/10.1515/9783112215111-003. A working version (full text) can be found here: www.roeesarel.com/research, and a google book can be found here: https://books.google.de/books?id=sdrKEQAAQBAJ&pg=PR3&hl=iw&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1 =onepage&q&f=false

AI Defects in the New Product Liability Directive was published in The Revised Product Liability Directive on page 37.

29/08/2025

ILE Working Paper 84 by Jerg Gutmann, Pascal Langer, and Matthias Neuenkirch shows that relationships between political leaders matter for the imposition of international sanctions. If leaders share more traits with each other in terms of family background, eduction, profession, etc., the countries they govern are less likely to sanction each other.

By Jerg Gutmann, Pascal Langer and Matthias Neuenkirch; Abstract: It is well-established that political leaders matter for domestic outcomes, but statistical evidence for their

29/08/2025

Mahdi Khesali and Stefan Voigt's work on measuring historical cultural traits has been discussed in a recent interview (in German):

Ein Forschungsteam um Prof. Dr. Stefan Voigt hat untersucht, ob die Werte in Märchen heute noch Einfluss auf das Wachstum von Staaten haben.

15/06/2025

Roee Sarel has published a new paper with Hadar Jabotinsky in the Connecticut Law Review. This timely research examines a question that gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic: whether the shift from in-person to virtual meetings results in meaningful information loss. The authors conducted a controlled laboratory experiment where participants solved information-sharing tasks through either face-to-face meetings or video conferences. The study was uniquely positioned, having been conducted just before the pandemic made this question urgently relevant. Their findings revealed no statistically significant differences in actual information flow between the two communication formats, with task performance outcomes equivalent across both meeting types. Interestingly, while participants reported feeling they shared more information in face-to-face settings, objective evidence showed no such difference.
This research provides valuable evidence for courts, law firms, and policymakers evaluating the effectiveness of virtual proceedings. The findings suggest that concerns about information loss in video conferencing may be more perceptual than substantive, supporting the continued use of virtual formats where appropriate. As legal institutions continue to integrate remote technologies post-pandemic, this study offers empirical grounding for policy decisions regarding virtual court hearings, depositions, client consultations, and other legal proceedings.

Hadar Y. Jabotinsky & Roee Sarel When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, policymakers faced a seemingly difficult choice. On the one hand, health considerations ...

28/03/2025

ILE Working Paper 83 by Laura Brandimarte, Jerg Gutmann, Gerd Muehlheusser, and Franziska Weber studies under what conditions private users are willing to accept the privacy cost associated with using an AI product that learns from their personal data. Standard economic attitudes and privacy attitudes are strong predictors of such decisions, whereas behavioral biases appear to play a minor role. Importantly, users care about the jurisdiction in which their data is stored. European servers are clearly preferred by participants from Europe and the US over servers in Hong Kong. US servers are only preferred by US residents.

By Jerg Gutmann, Laura Brandimarte, Gerd Muehlheusser and Franziska Weber; Abstract: We examine the trade-off between functionality and data privacy inherent in many AI products by conducting a

25/03/2025

A new study by three members of the ILE. The article on constitutional loyalty during the pandemic is open access and in English.

Die Unterstützung der Bürgerinnen und Bürger gegenüber politischen Entscheidungen sinkt, wenn sie erfahren, dass eine Maßnahme möglicherweise gegen die Verfassung verstößt.

😷 Das zeigt eine Studie des Instituts für Recht und Ökonomik an der Uni Hamburg am Beispiel der Corona-Pandemie. Das Forschungsteam befragte weltweit 1000 Teilnehmende aus verschiedenen demokratischen Ländern.

🗺️ „Unser Ziel war es, nicht eine oder wenige Demokratien repräsentativ abzubilden, sondern Ergebnisse zu erhalten, die über die Besonderheiten einzelner Länder hinausgehen und grundlegendere Erkenntnisse über die Rolle von Verfassungsgerichten in Demokratien ermöglichen“, erklärt Prof. Jerg Gutmann, Juniorprofessor für Behavioral Law and Economics.

⚖️ Die Studienergebnisse fielen überraschend eindeutig aus. Die Analyse ergab, dass die Zahl der Unterstützerinnen und Unterstützer einer politischen Maßnahme durchschnittlich um 15 Prozentpunkte sinkt, wenn das oberste Gericht eines Landes Zweifel an ihrer Verfassungsmäßigkeit äußert. „Dieser Rückgang verdeutlicht, dass Entscheidungen eines Verfassungsgerichts politische Gestaltungsspielräume einschränken können, selbst wenn Politikerinnen und Politiker verleitet sind, sich über Rechtsprechung hinwegzusetzen“, erklärt Gutmann.

Alle Infos zur Studie unter uhh.de/x6s7j

04/03/2025

The symposium on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence, organized by Malte Deutschmann, Marieke Fröhling, Prof. Dr. Roee Sarel and Dr. Hadar Jabotinsky, is now open for registration. We have a limited capacity left, so please register as soon as possible if you wish to attend. The one-day event will take place at the Warburghaus in Hamburg (in-person) on the 25.3.25 and include 12 presentations from established scholars, young scholars, and NGOs. If you wish to participate, secure your spot by registering here: https://forms.office.com/e/7D3z8VLhAP?origin=lprLink. A tentative copy of the program is attached as a photo here:

27/02/2025

📢EMLE/EDLE Sessions at EALE 2025 in Oslo!

We are pleased to announce that the upcoming EALE 2025 conference in Oslo will feature one or more dedicated EMLE/EDLE sessions. 🎓✨ Recognizing the valued role that the EMLE and EDLE communities have played in EALE’s history, we aim to build on this tradition.

📄 Call for Papers
We invite EMLE/EDLE students and Alumni to submit their individual paper to the conference’s call for papers. To ensure proper grouping of accepted papers into our sessions, please include the EMLE/EDLE program in your affiliation when submitting.

🔗 More Information & Submission Guidelines
For full details on the conference and submission process, please visit: 👉 EALE 2025 Conference Website

We look forward to receiving your submissions and showcasing our collaborative work at EALE 2025! 🚀

EMLE Management Team

21/01/2025

We are happy to announce an upcoming symposium on "Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence" on March 25 in Hamburg, organized by Malte Deutschmann, Marieke Fröhling, Roee Sarel, and Hadar Jabotinsky. The symposium will feature presentations from scholars working on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) and related topics and we are now soliciting proposals for anyone working in this area.

The call for proposals can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mAjNG5EkgpLuo5kdAyCWKkC1KNuoZHW2/view?usp=sharing

Information for registration will be distributed in March.

(the image is for illustration only)

18/12/2024

ILE Working Paper 82 by Mohammad Reza Farzanegan and Jerg Gutmann investigates the effect of the intensity of international sanctions on domestic conflict in Iran. They find that an unexpected increase in sanction intensity causes an increase in both civil disorder and terrorism risk. In contrast, the risk of civil war declines after an increase in sanction intensity.

By Mohammad Reza Farzanegan and Jerg Gutmann; Abstract: This study investigates the case of Iran to evaluate how changes in the intensity of international sanctions affect

25/09/2024

Roee Sarel has published a new blogpost together with Dr. Hadar Jabotinsky in the Duke FinReg blog on "Zooming in on Virtual Legal Encounters". The post relates their recent work on Face-to-Face meetings vs video conferences (forthcoming in the Connecticut Law Review) to some recent legal events and discusses implications.

As the world adapted to life in the shadow of Covid-19, the medium through which human beings communicated underwent a drastic change. Due to the social distancing measures adopted by governments, …