IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v79y2023ics0176268023000988.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Judicial independence: Why does de facto diverge from de jure?

Author

Listed:
  • Hayo, Bernd
  • Voigt, Stefan

Abstract

An independent judiciary is often hailed as one of the most important aspects of the rule of law. Securing judicial independence (JI) via explicit constitutional rules seems straightforward and there is evidence that de jure and de facto JI are linked, at least in the long term. However, the realized degree of judicial independence often diverges significantly from the constitutionally guaranteed one. Based on a worldwide panel dataset from 1950 to 2018, we find that a negative gap, that is, when de jure JI > de facto JI, is very common. Factors associated with a decreasing gap are the number of veto players and the extent of press freedom and democracy, whereas corruption is associated with an increasing gap between de jure JI and de facto JI.

Suggested Citation

  • Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2023. "Judicial independence: Why does de facto diverge from de jure?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:79:y:2023:i:c:s0176268023000988
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2023.102454
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268023000988
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2023.102454?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2013. "Endogenous constitutions: Politics and politicians matter, economic outcomes don’t," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 47-61.
    2. Jerg Gutmann & Stefan Voigt, 2020. "Judicial independence in the EU: a puzzle," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 83-100, February.
    3. Simon Hartmann & Rok Spruk, 2021. "Long-term effects of institutional instability," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 2073-2112, October.
    4. Bernd Hayo, 2018. "On Standard-Error-Decreasing Complementarity: Why Collinearity is Not the Whole Story," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 16(1), pages 289-307, March.
    5. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, 2014. "Mapping Constitutionally Safeguarded Judicial Independence—A Global Survey," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(1), pages 159-195, March.
    6. John Mcmillan & Pablo Zoido, 2004. "How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 69-92, Fall.
    7. Aldashev, Gani & Chaara, Imane & Platteau, Jean-Philippe & Wahhaj, Zaki, 2012. "Using the law to change the custom," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 182-200.
    8. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2016. "Explaining constitutional change: The case of judicial independence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-13.
    9. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2007. "Explaining de facto judicial independence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 269-290, September.
    10. Whitten-Woodring, Jenifer & Van Belle, Douglas A., 2017. "The Correlates of Media Freedom: An Introduction of the Global Media Freedom Dataset," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 179-188, January.
    11. Kiviet, Jan F., 1995. "On bias, inconsistency, and efficiency of various estimators in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 53-78, July.
    12. Maximiliano Marzetti & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 60-95, March.
    13. Frank Windmeijer, 2000. "A finite sample correction for the variance of linear two-step GMM estimators," IFS Working Papers W00/19, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    14. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A. & Yared, Pierre, 2009. "Reevaluating the modernization hypothesis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1043-1058, November.
    15. 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.
    16. Voigt, Stefan & Gutmann, Jerg & Feld, Lars P., 2015. "Economic growth and judicial independence, a dozen years on: Cross-country evidence using an updated Set of indicators," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 197-211.
    17. Everaert, Gerdie & Pozzi, Lorenzo, 2007. "Bootstrap-based bias correction for dynamic panels," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1160-1184, April.
    18. Brennan,Geoffrey & Hamlin,Alan, 2000. "Democratic Devices and Desires," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521639774, September.
    19. Dollar, David & Fisman, Raymond & Gatti, Roberta, 2001. "Are women really the "fairer" sex? Corruption and women in government," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 423-429, December.
    20. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    21. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    22. Bertomeu Juan González & Pellegrina Lucia Dalla & Garoupa Nuno, 2017. "Estimating Judicial Ideal Points in Latin America: The Case of Argentina," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-35, March.
    23. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2019. "The long-term relationship between de jure and de facto judicial independence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1-1.
    24. Christian Bjørnskov & Stefan Voigt & Mahdi Khesali, 2022. "Unconstitutional States of Emergency," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(2), pages 455-481.
    25. Bruno, Giovanni S.F., 2005. "Approximating the bias of the LSDV estimator for dynamic unbalanced panel data models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 361-366, June.
    26. Christian Bjørnskov & Stefan Voigt, 2021. "Is constitutionalized media freedom only window dressing? Evidence from terrorist attacks," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 187(3), pages 321-348, June.
    27. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    28. Weingast, Barry R., 1997. "The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of the Law," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(2), pages 245-263, June.
    29. Lutz, Donald S., 1994. "Toward a Theory of Constitutional Amendment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(2), pages 355-370, June.
    30. Mocan, Naci & Bielen, Samantha & Marneffe, Wim, 2020. "Quality of judicial institutions, crimes, misdemeanors, and dishonesty," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    31. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    32. Voigt, Stefan, 2018. "How to measure informal institutions," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 1-22, February.
    33. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    34. W. J. Henisz, 2000. "The Institutional Environment for Economic Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, March.
    35. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    36. Vanberg, Georg, 2011. "Substance vs. procedure: Constitutional enforcement and constitutional choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 309-318.
    37. Ruth Gavison, 2002. "What Belongs in a Constitution?," Chapters, in: Stefan Voigt & Hans-Jürgen Wagener (ed.), Constitutions, Markets and Law, chapter 1, pages 1-26, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    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. Kantorowicz, Jaroslaw & Voigt, Stefan, 2024. "Assessing the Impact of Federalism on Constitutional Compliance," ILE Working Paper Series 79, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.

    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. Voigt, Stefan, 2020. "Mind the Gap – Analyzing the Divergence between Constitutional Text and Constitutional Reality," ILE Working Paper Series 32, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    2. Alexander Chudik & M. Hashem Pesaran & Jui‐Chung Yang, 2018. "Half‐panel jackknife fixed‐effects estimation of linear panels with weakly exogenous regressors," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(6), pages 816-836, September.
    3. Alexander Chudik & M. Hashem Pesaran & Jui-Chung Yang, 2016. "Half-panel jackknife fixed effects estimation of panels with weakly exogenous regressor," Globalization Institute Working Papers 281, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    4. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2016. "Explaining constitutional change: The case of judicial independence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-13.
    5. Opolska, Iweta, 2017. "The efficacy of liberalization and privatization in introducing competition into European natural gas markets," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 12-21.
    6. Alexandre, Fernando & Bação, Pedro & Veiga, Francisco José, 2022. "The political economy of productivity growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    7. Jochimsen, Beate & Thomasius, Sebastian, 2014. "The perfect finance minister: Whom to appoint as finance minister to balance the budget," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 390-408.
    8. Andrew C. Chang, 2014. "Tax Policy Endogeneity: Evidence from R&D Tax Credits," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2014-101, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Dang, Viet Anh & Kim, Minjoo & Shin, Yongcheol, 2015. "In search of robust methods for dynamic panel data models in empirical corporate finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 84-98.
    10. Abonazel, Mohamed R., 2016. "Bias Correction Methods for Dynamic Panel Data Models with Fixed Effects," MPRA Paper 70628, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Lamar Crombach & Frank Bohn, 2024. "Uninformed voters with (im)precise expectations: Explaining political budget cycle puzzles," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 275-311, March.
    12. Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Positive constitutional economics II—a survey of recent developments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 205-256, January.
    13. Assi Okara, 2022. "Building Stronger Economic Institutions in Developing Countries, the Role of FDI," CERDI Working papers hal-03617915, HAL.
    14. Mali Chivakul & Bernhard Kassner, 2019. "Can Consumption Growth in China Keep Up as Investment Slows?," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 61(3), pages 381-412, September.
    15. Ibrahim, Mansor H. & Salim, Kinan & Abojeib, Moutaz & Yeap, Lau Wee, 2019. "Structural changes, competition and bank stability in Malaysia’s dual banking system," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 111-129.
    16. Ignace De Vos & Gerdie Everaert & Ilse Ruyssen, 2015. "Bootstrap-based bias correction and inference for dynamic panels with fixed effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 15(4), pages 986-1018, December.
    17. Lee, Dongwon & Min, Sujin, 2021. "Defective democracy and the political budget cycle," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 947-961.
    18. Alexander Chudik & M. Hashem Pesaran, 2017. "A Bias-Corrected Method of Moments Approach to Estimation of Dynamic Short-T Panels," CESifo Working Paper Series 6688, CESifo.
    19. Armey, Laura E. & McNab, Robert M., 2018. "Expenditure decentralization and natural resources," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 52-61.
    20. Chang, Chun Ping & Berdiev, Aziz N., 2011. "The political economy of energy regulation in OECD countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 816-825, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Judicial independence; Constitutional compliance; de jure; de facto; de jure-de facto gap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • K38 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Human Rights Law; Gender Law; Animal Rights Law
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:79:y:2023:i:c:s0176268023000988. 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.