"Access to justice (A2J) and litigation are the two fundamental dimensions of the effective resolution of disputes. Balancing the full protection of the right of A2J and the necessary limitation of the amount of socially expensive litigation is a crucial issue not only from the perspective of justice but also for socio-economic and security purposes. In fact, insufficient, inadequate or totally missing legal remedies can both generate social tension and hinder economic development.The project aims at developing the first comprehensive law & economics theory of the mechanism of A2J and litigation by interfacing techniques coming from legal scholarship, game theory and policy impact analysis.The thesis of the project is that A2J has to be endogenised into the law and economics models of litigation by relaxing the usual assumption of dispute resolutions in the shadow of an accessible court. This theoretical step makes it possible to study the potential trade-offs between favouring A2J and saving litigation costs. The ultimate scope of this investigation is comparing different policies with respect to their effects on access to justice and litigation rates. The project will provide a formal explanation of how different policies (e.g., legal aid, ADR, etc.) realise their overall purposes.The theory is validated by empirical applications. The empirical analysis focuses on the specific policy of legal aid across Europe. However, empirical applications could be possible on a broader range of policies.The highly inter-disciplinary nature of the project will cross-fertilize legal, socio-economic, and law & economics fields of research by significantly contributing to a deeper scientific understanding of legal disputes and their resolution as a critical social and economic phenomenon."