Judicial Decision Making: A Dynamic Reputation Approach
Alma Cohen,
Alon Klement and
Zvika Neeman
The Journal of Legal Studies, 2015, vol. 44, issue S1, S133 - S159
Abstract:
We seek to contribute to an understanding of how judicial elections affect the incentives and decisions of judges. We develop a theoretical model suggesting that judges who are concerned about their reputation will tend to decide against their prior decisions as they approach elections. That is, judges who imposed a large number of severe sentences in the past and are thus perceived to be strict will tend to impose less severe sentences prior to elections. Conversely, judges who imposed a large number of light sentences in the past and are thus perceived to be lenient will tend to impose more severe sentences prior to elections. Using data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, we test, and find evidence consistent with, the predictions of our model.
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)
Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/682689 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/682689 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
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:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/682689
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in The Journal of Legal Studies from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().