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An economic analysis of court fees: evidence from the Spanish civil jurisdiction

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  • Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti

    (Banco de España – Eurosystem)

  • Marta Martínez-Matute

    (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

Abstract

The adoption of “court fees” has been traditionally justified as a means to improve the performance of enforcement institutions as they may have an effect of “deterrence” of the dispute. Judicial congestion has clear negative impacts on economic performance. Spain, which has one of the highest rates of litigation of the OECD, has traditionally lacked a general system of court fees. In 2002, the Congress passed a system of court fees to be paid by legal entities and enterprises. In 2012, the fees were extended to individuals and abrogated in 2015. This bounded period of enforcement allows us to empirically test the impacts of court fees on congestion. In order to do this, we collected a comprehensive database of quarterly data on the real workload of civil courts. This study concludes that the effects of court fees, although reduced court’s congestion, are far from homogeneous and depend on the type of procedure, the workload of the courts and the local macroeconomic conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti & Marta Martínez-Matute, 2019. "An economic analysis of court fees: evidence from the Spanish civil jurisdiction," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 321-359, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:47:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10657-019-09614-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-019-09614-9
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Courts fees; Judicial efficacy; Litigation rates;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process
    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services

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