Peer effects on the United States Supreme Court
| Autor: | Matthew Lilley, Michael Keane, Richard Holden |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Economics and Econometrics
media_common.quotation_subject Economic Justice political economy D72 Voting Political science 0502 economics and business ddc:330 Justice (ethics) 050207 economics C31 C33 050205 econometrics media_common Law and economics Spoilt vote 05 social sciences Percentage point Peer group Outcome (probability) Supreme court Peer effects Law voting Voting behavior Position (finance) K40 Supreme Court Ideology |
| Zdroj: | Quantitative Economics. 12:981-1019 |
| ISSN: | 1759-7323 |
| DOI: | 10.3982/qe1296 |
| Popis: | Using data on essentially every US Supreme Court decision since 1946, we estimate a model of peer effects on the Court. We consider both the impact of justice ideology and justice votes on the votes of their peers. To identify these peer effects we use two instruments. The first is based on the composition of the Court, determined by which justices sit on which cases due to recusals or health reasons for not sitting. The second utilizes the fact that many justices previously sat on Federal Circuit Courts and are empirically much more likely to affirm decisions from their “home” court. We find large peer effects. Replacing a single justice with one who votes in a conservative direction 10 percentage points more frequently increases the probability that each other justice votes conservative by 1.63 percentage points. In terms of votes, a 10 percentage point increase in the probability that a single justice votes conservative leads to a 1.1 percentage increase in the probability that each other justice votes conservative. Finally, a single justice becoming 10% more likely to vote conservative increases the share of cases with a conservative outcome by 3.6 percentage points – excluding the direct effect of that justice – and reduces the share with a liberal outcome by 3.2 percentage points. In general, the indirect effect of a justice’s vote on the outcome through the votes of their peers is typically several times larger than the direct mechanical effect of the justice’s own vote. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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