Consequences of Inconvenient Information: Evidence from Sentencing Disparities

Michal Šoltés

CERGE-EI Working Papers from The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague

Abstract: Inconvenient information about the performance of public institutions may undermine public trust. In an experiment, I test how information about sentencing disparities among judges in the Czech Republic affects respondents’ perception of the judicial system. I find no effect on respondents’ declared institutional trust and willingness to rely on the formal judicial system. Instead, the information marginally increased respondents’ policy involvement: They became more likely to: (i) sign a petition that invites politicians to address the underlying issue, and (ii) consider fairness of the judicial system a more important policy issue. The increased interest in the petition was driven by mothers, who are arguably more sensitive to the particular treatment information in the presented case of a failure to pay alimony.

Keywords: information disclosure; institutional trust; performance of public institutions; sentencing disparities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D83 H11 H40 K40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-law and nep-tra
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Related works:
Journal Article: Consequences of inconvenient information: Evidence from sentencing disparities (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cer:papers:wp718

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