IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v25y2009i3p327-339.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of lay participation in courts -- A cross-country analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Voigt, Stefan

Abstract

Legal philosophers like Montesquieu, Hegel and Tocqueville have argued that lay participation in judicial decision-making would have benefits reaching far beyond the realm of the legal system narrowly understood. From an economic point of view, lay participation in judicial decision-making can be interpreted as a renunciation of an additional division of labor, which is expected to cause foregone benefits in terms of the costs as well as the quality of judicial decision-making. In order to be justified, these foregone benefits need to be overcompensated by other - actually realized - benefits of at least the same magnitude. This paper discusses pros and cons of lay participation, presents a new database and tests some of the theoretically derived hypotheses empirically. The effects of lay participation on the judicial system, a number of governance variables but also on economic performance indicators are rather modest. A proxy representing historic experiences with any kind of lay participation is the single most robust variable.

Suggested Citation

  • Voigt, Stefan, 2009. "The effects of lay participation in courts -- A cross-country analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 327-339, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:25:y:2009:i:3:p:327-339
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176-2680(09)00012-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthias Benz & Alois Stutzer, 2004. "Are Voters Better Informed When They Have a Larger Say in Politics? -- Evidence for the European Union and Switzerland," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 119(1_2), pages 31-59, April.
    2. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    3. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Courts: the Lex Mundi Project," NBER Working Papers 8890, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Beck, Thorsten & Clarke, George & Groff, Alberto & Keefer, Philip & Walsh, Patrick, 2000. "New tools and new tests in comparative political economy - the database of political institutions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2283, The World Bank.
    5. Niclas Berggren & Mikael Elinder & Henrik Jordahl, 2008. "Trust and growth: a shaky relationship," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 251-274, September.
    6. Feld, Lars P. & Voigt, Stefan, 2003. "Economic growth and judicial independence: cross-country evidence using a new set of indicators," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 497-527, September.
    7. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    8. Roger D. Congleton & Birgitta Swedenborg (ed.), 2006. "Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy: Analysis and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262033496, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefan Voigt, 2017. "Tullock on the common law: a loose-cannon iconoclast in action?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 35-47, March.
    2. Goerke, Laszlo & Neugart, Michael, 2015. "Lobbying and dismissal dispute resolution systems," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 50-62.
    3. Berger, Helge & Neugart, Michael, 2011. "Labor courts, nomination bias, and unemployment in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 659-673.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Positive constitutional economics II—a survey of recent developments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 205-256, January.
    2. Stefan Voigt, 2008. "The (Economic) Effects of Lay Participation in Courts – A Cross-Country Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 2365, CESifo.
    3. Stefan Voigt, 2008. "The economic effects of judicial accountability: cross-country evidence," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 95-123, April.
    4. Stefan Voigt & Lorenz Blume, 2007. "Wenn Justitia die Hand aufhält – Ursachen und Folgen korrupter Justizbehörden," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 8(1), pages 65-92, January.
    5. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2007. "Explaining de facto judicial independence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 269-290, September.
    6. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, 2008. "The Relevance of Judicial Procedure for Economic Growth," MAGKS Papers on Economics 200828, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    7. Bernhard P. Zaaruka & Johannes W. Fedderke, 2011. "Measuring Institutions: Indicators of Political and Economic Institutions in Namibia: 1884 – 2008," Working Papers 236, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    8. Vatcharin Sirimaneetham, 2006. "What drives liberal policies in developing countries?," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 06/587, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    9. Voigt, Stefan, 2012. "On the optimal number of courts," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 49-62.
    10. Theo S. Eicher & David J. Kuenzel, 2019. "European influence and economic development," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 667-734, May.
    11. Buchen, Clemens, 2010. "Emerging economic systems in Central and Eastern Europe – a qualitative and quantitative assessment," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 37141, January.
    12. Enrico Longoni & Filippo Gregorini, 2009. "Inequality, Political Systems and Public Spending," Working Papers 159, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2009.
    13. Lorenz Blume & Jens Müller & Stefan Voigt, 2009. "The economic effects of direct democracy—a first global assessment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 431-461, September.
    14. Martin Strieborny & Madina Kukenova, 2016. "Investment in Relationship-Specific Assets: Does Finance Matter?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1487-1515.
    15. Blume, Lorenz & Voigt, Stefan, 2013. "The economic effects of constitutional budget institutions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 236-251.
    16. Voigt, Stefan & Gutmann, Jerg, 2015. "On the wrong side of the law – Causes and consequences of a corrupt judiciary," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 156-166.
    17. Lars P. Feld & Stefan Voigt, 2004. "Making Judges Independent – Some Proposals Regarding the Judiciary," CESifo Working Paper Series 1260, CESifo.
    18. Stefan Voigt & Lorenz Blume, 2015. "Does direct democracy make for better citizens? A cautionary warning based on cross-country evidence," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 391-420, December.
    19. Steven Globerman & Daniel Shapiro, 2003. "Governance infrastructure and US foreign direct investment," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 34(1), pages 19-39, January.
    20. Serkan Degirmenci, 2011. "Do Institutions Matter for Regional Economic Growth and Development? The Case of Turkey," ERSA conference papers ersa11p1180, European Regional Science Association.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:25:y:2009:i:3:p:327-339. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505544 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.