Measuring Judicial Ideology Using Law Clerk Hiring

Adam Bonica, Adam S. Chilton, Jacob Goldin, Kyle Rozema and Maya Sen
Additional contact information
Adam Bonica: Stanford University
Adam S. Chilton: University of Chicago
Jacob Goldin: Stanford University
Kyle Rozema: Northwestern University
Maya Sen: Harvard University

Working Paper Series from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government

Abstract: We present a new measure of judicial ideology based on judicial hiring behavior. Specifically, we utilize the ideology of the law clerks hired by federal judges to estimate the ideology of the judges themselves. These Clerk-Based Ideology (CBI) scores complement existing measures of judicial ideology in several ways. First, CBI scores can be estimated for judges across the federal judicial hierarchy. Second, CBI scores can capture temporal changes in ideology. Third, CBI scores avoid case selection and strategic behavior concerns that plague existing vote-based measures. We illustrate the promise of CBI scores through a number of applications.

JEL-codes: M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecl:harjfk:16-031

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