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Governance of tax courts

Author

Listed:
  • Roberto Ippoliti

    (University of Turin)

  • Giovanni B. Ramello

    (Università del Piemonte Orientale)

Abstract

This paper attempts to penetrate the “black box” of the judiciary through an empirical investigation of the Italian tax courts of first instance. Both judicial delay and two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis approach with bootstrap are used to measure the efficiency of the court system and to further identify the main determinants of efficiency which, in line with the previous literature, seem to be mostly related to the judges’ effort. The study also takes advantage of an idiosyncratic feature of this branch of the Italian judiciary—in which judges are temporarily appointed and can continue to practice an external (though not conflicting) profession—to assess the impact of opportunity costs on the behavior of judges. The overall outcome confirms that judges maximize utility “the same as everybody else does” (Posner, Supreme Court Econ Rev 3:1–41, 1993).

Suggested Citation

  • Roberto Ippoliti & Giovanni B. Ramello, 2018. "Governance of tax courts," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 317-338, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:19:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10101-018-0212-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10101-018-0212-5
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    Cited by:

    1. Marciano, Alain & Ramello, Giovanni B., 2019. "Introduction to the symposium on the empirics of judicial institutions," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 73-80, February.
    2. Francesco Aiello & Graziella Bonanno & Francesco Foglia, 2021. "On The Heterogeneity In The Judicial Efficiency Literature: A Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers 202102, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Judicial efficiency; Judges incentives; Data Envelopment Analysis; Tax justice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • M11 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Production Management
    • C44 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Operations Research; Statistical Decision Theory

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