Is There a Politically Optimal Level of Judicial Independence?
53 Pages Posted: 14 May 2001
Date Written: April 2001
Abstract
Although society as a whole may benefit from an independent judiciary, it is not clear that individual politicians do: an independent court is one that can tell a politician not to do what he or she would like. This paper develops a simple model in which incumbent politicians choose the level of judicial independence, setting the gains from the increased durability of their preferred policy against the costs of policymaking by the judge. The model is tested by examining cross-sectional and time series differences in the judicial institutions of the American states. The results are consistent with the model's predictions: firmer single party control is found to be associated with a less independent judiciary, closer competition between political parties with a more independent judiciary, greater differences in party policy positions with a more independent judiciary, and greater differences between the policy preferences of judge and politician with attempts to reduce the independence of the judiciary.
JEL Classification: K0, D7, H1, H7
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States
By Timothy J. Besley and Anne Case
-
How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy
By John A. List and Daniel M. Sturm
-
How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy
By John A. List and Daniel M. Sturm
-
Issue Unbundling Via Citizens' Initiatives
By Timothy J. Besley and Stephen Coate
-
Issue Unbundling Via Citizens' Initiatives
By Timothy J. Besley and Stephen Coate
-
Political Competition and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence from the United States
By Timothy J. Besley, Torsten Persson, ...
-
Political Competition and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence from the United States
By Timothy J. Besley, Torsten Persson, ...
-
Political Competition and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence from the United States
By Timothy J. Besley, Torsten Persson, ...
-
Political Competition with Campaign Contributions and Informative Advertising
-
Term Limits and Electoral Accountability
By Michael Smart and Daniel M. Sturm