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Party Capability versus Court Preference: Why Do the "Haves" Come Out Ahead?—An Empirical Lesson from the Taiwan Supreme Court

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  • Kong-Pin Chen
  • Kuo-Chang Huang
  • Chang-Ching Lin

Abstract

Using civil appeals data on Taiwan’s Supreme Court (TSC), this article revisits the well-known question of whether the "haves" come out ahead in litigations. We first show that the higher-status litigants indeed mobilized stronger legal representation and obtained more victories than the lower-status litigants. However, we submit that that the party capability theory cannot fully explain the advantages the "haves" enjoyed over the "have-nots." Further analysis reveals that the TSC’s exercise of discretionary jurisdiction also played an important role by strongly favoring the governmental litigants at the agenda-setting stage. We argue that the TSC’s preference in this regard was induced by the TSC judges’ self-identification as part of government. In conclusion, our empirical investigation shows that both party capability and court preference contribute to influence the outcomes of appeals. (JEL K4)

Suggested Citation

  • Kong-Pin Chen & Kuo-Chang Huang & Chang-Ching Lin, 2015. "Party Capability versus Court Preference: Why Do the "Haves" Come Out Ahead?—An Empirical Lesson from the Taiwan Supreme Court," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 93-126.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jleorg:v:31:y:2015:i:1:p:93-126.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jleo/ewt022
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Juranek, Steffen, 2018. "Investing in legal advice," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 28-46.
    2. Yun-chien Chang & Su-hao Tu, 2020. "Two-way selection between flat-fee attorneys and litigants: theoretical and empirical analyses," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 131-164, February.
    3. Keren Weinshall & Lee Epstein, 2020. "Developing High‐Quality Data Infrastructure for Legal Analytics: Introducing the Israeli Supreme Court Database," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 416-434, June.
    4. Lin, Chang-Ching & Chang, Yun-chien & Chen, Kong-Pin, 2020. "Knowledge in youth is wisdom in age: an empirical study of attorney experience in torts litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Monika Stachowiak-Kudła & Janusz Kudła, 2022. "Path dependence in administrative adjudication: the role played by legal tradition," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 301-325, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior

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