Legal pluralism in post-conflict Sierra Leone

We examine the interaction between two legal systems in post-conflict Sierra Leone. To do that, we measure the impact of competition between state and non-state legal authorities on the number of disputes and on the amount of fines charged per dispute. Our results suggest a potential negative externality between regimes for civil disputes that is, an increase in the cost of apprehending a person and a reduction in the amount of fines per dispute collected when two regimes operate in the same village. This indicates that a potential benefit to the local people from multiple competing regimes is a reduction on expected authoritative expropriation.