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American Economic Review Vol. 102 No. 1 2012

The Value of Information in the Court: Get it Right, Keep it Tight

Matias Iaryczower1; Matthew Shum2

1 Department of Politics, Princeton University, 037 Corwin Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544. · 2 Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, 301D Baxter Hall, Pasadena, CA 91125.

Abstract

We estimate an equilibrium model of decision making in the US Supreme Court that takes into account both private information and ideological differences between justices. We measure the value of information in the court by the probability that a justice votes differently from how she would have voted without case-specific information. Our results suggest a sizable value of information: in 44 percent of cases, justices' initial leanings are changed by their personal assessments of the case. Our results also confirm the increased politicization of the Supreme Court in the last quarter century. Counterfactual simulations provide implications for institutional design.

DOI
10.1257/aer.102.1.202
Volume
102
Issue
1
Pages
202-237
Language
en
Sources
openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

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