When in Rome... on local norms and sentencing decisions

Roberto Galbiati, Emeric Henry, Arnaud Philippe and David Abrams ()

No 13587, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

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: Norms; Laws; Judicial decision making; Delegation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP13587 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: When in Rome... On Local Norms and Sentencing Decisions (2022)
Working Paper: When in Rome... On Local Norms and Sentencing Decisions (2022)
Working Paper: When in Rome... On Local Norms and Sentencing Decisions (2022)
Working Paper: When in Rome... on local norms and sentencing decisions (2019)
Working Paper: When in Rome... on local norms and sentencing decisions (2019)
Working Paper: When in Rome... on local norms and sentencing decisions (2019)
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:cpr:ceprdp:13587

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP13587

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().