IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlstud/doi10.1086-677039.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Politics of Opinion Assignment and Authorship on the US Court of Appeals: Evidence from Sexual Harassment Cases

Author

Listed:
  • Sean Farhang
  • Jonathan P. Kastellec
  • Gregory J. Wawro

Abstract

We evaluate opinion assignment and authorship on the US courts of appeals. We derive theoretical explanations and predictions for opinion assignment that are motivated by the courts of appeals' distinct institutional setting. Using an original data set of sexual harassment cases, we test our predictions and find that female and more liberal judges are substantially more likely to write opinions in sexual harassment cases. We further find that this pattern appears to result not from policy-driven behavior by female and liberal assigners but from an institutional environment in which judges seek out opinions they wish to write. Judicial opinions are the vehicles of judicial policy, and thus these results have important implications for the relationship between legal rules and opinion assignment and for the study of diversity and representation on multimember courts.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean Farhang & Jonathan P. Kastellec & Gregory J. Wawro, 2015. "The Politics of Opinion Assignment and Authorship on the US Court of Appeals: Evidence from Sexual Harassment Cases," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(S1), pages 59-85.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/677039
    DOI: 10.1086/677039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/677039
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/677039
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/677039?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2007. "The Evolution of Common Law," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(1), pages 43-68.
    2. Christina L. Boyd & Lee Epstein & Andrew D. Martin, 2010. "Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 389-411, April.
    3. Sean Farhang, 2004. "Institutional Dynamics on the U.S. Court of Appeals: Minority Representation Under Panel Decision Making," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 299-330, October.
    4. Scott Baker & Claudio Mezzetti, 2012. "A Theory of Rational Jurisprudence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(3), pages 513-551.
    5. Carrubba, Clifford J. & Clark, Tom S., 2012. "Rule Creation in a Political Hierarchy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(3), pages 622-643, August.
    6. Lax, Jeffrey R., 2007. "Constructing Legal Rules on Appellate Courts," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(3), pages 591-604, August.
    7. Charles M. Cameron, 2007. "Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the US Supreme Court," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(2), pages 276-302, June.
    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. Guimaraesy, Bernardo & Meyerhof Salama, Bruno, 2017. "Contingent judicial deference: theory and application to usury laws," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86146, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Bernardo Guimaraes & Bruno Meyerhof Salama, 2023. "Permitting Prohibitions," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(1), pages 241-271.
    3. Amitrajeet A. Batabyal & Hamid Beladi, 2020. "A game-theoretic model of sexual harassment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1281-1291.
    4. Guimarães, Bernardo de Vasconcellos & Salama, Bruno Meyerhof, 2017. "Contingent judicial deference: theory and application to usury laws," Textos para discussão 440, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    5. Liu, Chelsea, 2020. "Judge political affiliation and impacts of corporate environmental litigation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Keith Carlson & Michael A. Livermore & Daniel N. Rockmore, 2020. "The Problem of Data Bias in the Pool of Published U.S. Appellate Court Opinions," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 224-261, June.

    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. Charles M. Cameron & Lewis A. Kornhauser, 2017. "Rational choice attitudinalism?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 535-554, June.
    2. Tom S Clark, 2016. "Scope and precedent: judicial rule-making under uncertainty," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 28(3), pages 353-384, July.
    3. Adam B. Badawi & Scott Baker, 2015. "Appellate Lawmaking in a Judicial Hierarchy," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(1), pages 139-172.
    4. Justin Fox & Georg Vanberg, 2014. "Narrow versus broad judicial decisions," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(3), pages 355-383, July.
    5. Elliott Ash & W. Bentley MacLeod, 2015. "Intrinsic Motivation in Public Service: Theory and Evidence from State Supreme Courts," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4).
    6. Xiaohong Yu & Zhaoyang Sun, 2022. "The company they keep: When and why Chinese judges engage in collegiality," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 936-1002, December.
    7. Chen, Daniel L. & Levonyan, Vardges & Yeh, Susan, 2016. "Policies Affect Preferences: Evidence from Random Variation in Abortion Jurisprudence," IAST Working Papers 16-58, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    8. Clark, Tom S. & Montagnes, B. Pablo & Spenkuch, Jörg L., 2022. "Politics from the Bench? Ideology and Strategic Voting in the U.S. Supreme Court," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    9. Chen, Ying & Eraslan, Hulya, 2018. "Learning While Setting Precedents," Working Papers 18-001, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    10. Chen, Daniel L., 2016. "Priming Ideology: Why Presidential Elections Affect U.S. Judges," TSE Working Papers 16-681, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Aug 2016.
    11. Thomas J. Miles, 2012. "Racial Disparities in Wiretap Applications before Federal Judges," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 419-458.
    12. Cosnita-Langlais, Andreea & Tropeano, Jean-Philippe, 2022. "Learning by litigating: An application to antitrust commitments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Tilko Swalve, 2022. "Does Group Familiarity Improve Deliberations in Judicial Teams? Evidence from the German Federal Court of Justice," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(1), pages 223-249, March.
    14. Robert S. Erikson, 2022. "Appellate court assignments as a natural experiment: Gender panel effects in sex discrimination cases," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(2), pages 423-446, June.
    15. Muehlheusser, Gerd & Promann, Timo & Roider, Andreas & Wallmeier, Niklas, 2024. "Honesty of Groups: Effects of Size and Gender Composition," IZA Discussion Papers 16954, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli & Alessandro Riboni, 2014. "Why Stare Decisis?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 726-738, October.
    17. Claudine Desrieux & Romain Espinosa, 2019. "Case selection and judicial decision-making: evidence from French labor courts," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 57-88, February.
    18. Howell, William & Shepsle, Kenneth & Wolton, Stephane, 2020. "Executive Absolutism: A Model," MPRA Paper 98221, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Crow, Matthew S. & Goulette, Natalie, 2022. "Judicial diversity and sentencing disparity across U.S. District Courts," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    20. Chen, Daniel L. & Sethi, Jasmin, 2016. "Insiders, Outsiders, and Involuntary Unemployment: Sexual Harrassment Exacerbates Gender Inequality," IAST Working Papers 16-44, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/677039. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLS .

    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.