The Value of Information in the Court: Get It Right, Keep It Tight

Matias Iaryczower and Matthew Shum ()

American Economic Review, 2012, vol. 102, issue 1, 202-37

Abstract: We estimate an equilibrium model of decision making in the US Supreme Court that takes into account both private information and ideological differences between justices. We measure the value of information in the court by the probability that a justice votes differently from how she would have voted without case-specific information. Our results suggest a sizable value of information: in 44 percent of cases, justices' initial leanings are changed by their personal assessments of the case. Our results also confirm the increased politicization of the Supreme Court in the last quarter century. Counterfactual simulations provide implications for institutional design. (JEL D72, D82, D83, K10)

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.102.1.202 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/feb2012/20091207_data.zip dataset accompanying article (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:102:y:2012:i:1:p:202-37

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().