IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v68y2002i3p693-702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Positive Political Model of Supreme Court Economic Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Tony Caporale
  • Harold Wintert

Abstract

We develop a positive political model of the U.S. Supreme Court. Looking at the Court's economic cases for the period 1953‐1993, we find a significant larger fraction of conservative decisions under Republican presidents and more conservative leadership of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Conservative decisions are also found to be positively correlated with the fraction of the Court appointed by Republican presidents and the rate of price inflation. We argue that our findings cast serious doubt on the common view of the Supreme Court as a completely independent, apolitical institution.

Suggested Citation

  • Tony Caporale & Harold Wintert, 2002. "A Positive Political Model of Supreme Court Economic Decisions," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(3), pages 693-702, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:68:y:2002:i:3:p:693-702
    DOI: 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2002.tb00447.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2002.tb00447.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2002.tb00447.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Toma, Eugenia Froedge, 1991. "Congressional Influence and the Supreme Court: The Budget as a Signaling Device," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 131-146, January.
    2. Weingast, Barry R & Moran, Mark J, 1983. "Bureaucratic Discretion or Congressional Control? Regulatory Policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(5), pages 765-800, October.
    3. Groseclose, Tim & Levitt, Steven D. & Snyder, James M., 1999. "Comparing Interest Group Scores across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(1), pages 33-50, March.
    4. Levitt, Steven D, 1996. "How Do Senators Vote? Disentangling the Role of Voter Preferences, Party Affiliation, and Senate Ideology," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 425-441, June.
    5. Toma, Eugenia F., 1996. "A contractual model of the voting behavior of the supreme court: The role of the chief justice," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 433-447, December.
    6. Henry W. Chappell & Thomas M. Havrilesky & Rob Roy McGregor, 1993. "Partisan Monetary Policies: Presidential Influence Through the Power of Appointment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 185-218.
    7. Shepsle, Kenneth A. & Weingast, Barry R., 1987. "The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 85-104, March.
    8. Caporale, Tony & Winter, Harold, 1998. "Political influence over Supreme Court criminal procedure cases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 465-475, May.
    9. Grier, Kevin B., 1996. "Congressional oversight committee influence on U.S. monetary policy revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 571-579, December.
    10. Grier, Kevin B., 1991. "Congressional influence on U.S. monetary policy : An empirical test," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 201-220, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Pablo T. Spiller & Rafael Gely, 2007. "Strategic Judicial Decision Making," NBER Working Papers 13321, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Bryan P. Cutsinger & Alexander Marsella & Yang Zhou, 2022. "Insuring legislative wealth transfers: theory and evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 127-144, July.
    3. Alexander W. Salter & William J. Luther, 2019. "Adaptation and central banking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 243-256, September.
    4. Caporale, Tony & Grier, Kevin B, 1998. "A Political Model of Monetary Policy with Application to the Real Fed Funds Rate," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 409-428, October.
    5. Sutter, Daniel, 1999. "Discretionary policy implementation and reform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 249-262, July.
    6. Jordan, Jerry L. & Luther, William J., 2022. "Central bank independence and the Federal Reserve's new operating regime," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 510-515.
    7. Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States—a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 145-207, January.
    8. Dodge Cahan & Luisa Doerr & Niklas Potrafke, 2019. "Government ideology and monetary policy in OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 215-238, December.
    9. Belke, Ansgar & Potrafke, Niklas, 2012. "Does government ideology matter in monetary policy? A panel data analysis for OECD countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 1126-1139.
    10. Jin-Hyuk Kim, 2013. "Determinants of post-congressional lobbying employment," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 107-126, May.
    11. Caporale, Tony & Winter, Harold, 1998. "Political influence over Supreme Court criminal procedure cases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 465-475, May.
    12. Joseph McGarrity, 2005. "Macroeconomic conditions and committee re-election rates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 453-480, September.
    13. Stuart Kasdin & Luona Lin, 2015. "Strategic behavior by federal agencies in the allocation of public resources," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 309-329, September.
    14. Jason Matthew DeBacker, 2015. "Flip‐Flopping: Ideological Adjustment Costs In The United States Senate," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 108-128, January.
    15. Ando, Amy, 1998. "Delay on the Path to the Endangered Species List: Do Costs and Benefits Matter," RFF Working Paper Series dp-97-43-rev, Resources for the Future.
    16. Jason DeBacker, 2012. "Political parties and political shirking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 651-670, March.
    17. Joseph P. McGarrity & Daniel Sutter, 2000. "A Test of the Structure of PAC Contracts: An Analysis of House Gun Control Votes in the 1980s," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(1), pages 41-63, July.
    18. Krehbiel, Keith & Meirowitz, Adam & Woon, Jonathan, 2004. "Testing Theories of Lawmaking," Research Papers 1860, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    19. Salter, Alexander W. & Smith, Daniel J., 2019. "Political economists or political economists? The role of political environments in the formation of fed policy under burns, Greenspan, and Bernanke," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-13.
    20. Caporale, Tony, 1998. "The impact of monetary regime changes: Some exchange rate evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 85-94, March.

    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:wly:soecon:v:68:y:2002:i:3:p:693-702. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    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.