The Effect of Electoral Institutions on Tort Awards

Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok

American Law and Economics Review, 2002, vol. 4, issue 2, 341-370

Abstract: We argue that partisan elected judges have an incentive to redistribute wealth from out-of-state defendants (nonvoters) to in-state plaintiffs (voters). We first test the hypothesis by using cross-state data. We find a significant partisan effect after controlling for differences in injuries, state incomes, poverty levels, selection effects, and other factors. One difference that appears difficult to control for is that each state has its own tort law. In cases involving citizens of different states, federal judges decide disputes by using state law. Using these diversity-of-citizenship cases, we conclude that differences in awards are caused by differences in electoral systems, not by differences in state law. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Effect of Electoral Institutions on Tort Awards (2002)
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:oup:amlawe:v:4:y:2002:i:2:p:341-370

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

American Law and Economics Review is currently edited by J.J. Prescott and Albert Choi

More articles in American Law and Economics Review from American Law and Economics Association Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().