When in Rome… on local norms and sentencing decisions

David Abrams, Roberto Galbiati, Emeric Henry and Arnaud Philippe
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David Abrams: University of Pennsylvania
Arnaud Philippe: TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: In this paper, we show that sentencing norms vary widely even across geographically close units. By examining North Carolina's unique judicial rotation system, we show that judges arriving in a new court gradually converge to local sentencing norms. We document factors that facilitate this convergence and show that sentencing norms are predicted by preferences of the local constituents. We build on these empirical results to analyze theoretically the delegation trade-off faced by a social planner: the judge can learn the local norm, but only at the cost of potential capture.

Keywords: Justice; Sentences; Welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-04-01
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03393093v1
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Working Paper: When in Rome… on local norms and sentencing decisions (2019)
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