New Disputes and Delay in Italian Courts

Gravelle (1990) has shown that delay works as measure of the excess of demand characterizing a judicial system. In this paper we adapt the Gravelle’s argument to the Italian judicial system in order to verify whether it works, in the sense that delay discourages potential plaintiffs from starting a new dispute. Results of our analysis show a negative short-run and medium-run impact of delay on new legal disputes according to Gravelle’s theory.