Re-election Concerns and the Failure of Plea Bargaining

Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay and Bryan McCannon

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Birmingham

Abstract: A new explanation for the failure of plea bargaining is provided. It is shown that a retention agent (i.e. median voter) can use convictions at trial as a signal of the quality of a prosecutor. This encourages a public prosecutor to take cases to trial even when both social welfare and her utility (absent the retention motivatiOn) from plea bargaining is higher.

Keywords: plea bargaining; prosecutor evaluation; signaling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12 pages
Date: 2010-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bir:birmec:10-28

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