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A mathematical approach to the study of the United States Code

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  • Bommarito, Michael J.
  • Katz, Daniel M.

Abstract

The United States Code (Code) is a document containing over 22 million words that represents a large and important source of Federal statutory law. Scholars and policy advocates often discuss the direction and magnitude of changes in various aspects of the Code. However, few have mathematically formalized the notions behind these discussions or directly measured the resulting representations. This paper addresses the current state of the literature in two ways. First, we formalize a representation of the United States Code as the union of a hierarchical network and a citation network over vertices containing the language of the Code. This representation reflects the fact that the Code is a hierarchically organized document containing language and explicit citations between provisions. Second, we use this formalization to measure aspects of the Code as codified in October 2008, November 2009, and March 2010. These measurements allow for a characterization of the actual changes in the Code over time. Our findings indicate that in the recent past, the Code has grown in its amount of structure, interdependence, and language.

Suggested Citation

  • Bommarito, Michael J. & Katz, Daniel M., 2010. "A mathematical approach to the study of the United States Code," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(19), pages 4195-4200.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:389:y:2010:i:19:p:4195-4200
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2010.05.057
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Scott E. Page, 2008. "Uncertainty, Difficulty, and Complexity," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(2), pages 115-149, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bokwon Lee & Kyu-Min Lee & Jae-Suk Yang, 2019. "Network structure reveals patterns of legal complexity in human society: The case of the Constitutional legal network," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, January.
    2. Pontus Braunerhjelm & Johan E. Eklund, 2014. "Taxes, tax administrative burdens and new firm formation," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(1), pages 1-11, February.
    3. Michael J Bommarito II & Daniel Martin Katz, 2016. "Measuring the temperature and diversity of the U.S. regulatory ecosystem," Papers 1612.09244, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2017.
    4. Steffen Hurka & Maximilian Haag, 2020. "Policy complexity and legislative duration in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(1), pages 87-108, March.

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