The speed of justice

Florence Kondylis and Mattea Stein

No 8372, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Can changing the rules of the game affect government performance? This paper studies the impact of a simple procedural reform on the efficiency and quality of adjudication in Senegal. The reform gave judges the duty and powers to conclude pre-trial proceedings within a four-month deadline. The analysis combines a staggered rollout across the six civil and commercial chambers of the Court of Dakar and three years of high-frequency caseload data to construct an event study. The analysis finds a reduction in procedural formalism, as the length of the pre-trial stage decreases by 42.9 days (0.29 standard deviation) and the number of case-level pre-trial hearings is reduced, while judges are more likely to impose deadlines. The effect is similar for small and large cases, and fast and slow judges are equally likely to apply the reform. The evidence suggests that these efficiency gains have no adverse impact on quality, and the paper documents positive firm-level effects.

Keywords: International Trade and Trade Rules; Economic Adjustment and Lending; Taxation&Subsidies; Macro-Fiscal Policy; Tax Administration; Tax Law; Public Sector Economics; Public Finance Decentralization and Poverty Reduction; Social Policy; Legislation; Legal Products; Legal Reform; Judicial System Reform; Regulatory Regimes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-03-22
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/45502152 ... speed-of-justice.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Speed of Justice (2023)
Working Paper: The Speed of Justice (2021)
Working Paper: The Speed of Justice (2018)
Working Paper: The Speed of Justice (2018)
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:wbk:wbrwps:8372

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().