Judicial Accountability and Economic Policy Outcomes: Evidence from Employment Discrimination Charges

How and whether judges should be held accountable is a key issue in the design of a legal system. Thirty-seven of the forty-eight continental states use some method of judicial selection which involves a direct role for citizens in selecting or re-appointing the judiciary. We identify two theoretical reasons why the method used for choosing judges is important – (i) a selection effect if the competence or underlying preferences of judges is affected, (ii) an incentive effect if the judges who are chosen behave differently because of the method used for their reappointment. This paper uses data from the U.S. to investigate whether judicial selection methods affect the number of employment discrimination charges filed for the period 19732000. Our results show that states that appoint their judges have lower levels of discrimination charges compared to those that use some form of election. The results appear to be driven by states where judges being subject to re-election incentives rather than because judges with different preferences/competences are being chosen. * contact information: Department of Economics, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC 2A 2AE, UK, [email protected], (44-20) 7955-6702.. **contact information: Department of Economics, KTH 426, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M4, [email protected], (905)525-9140, ext 23814 The authors would like to thank Andrew Hanssen, Andrei Shleifer, and Julia Shvets for helpful comments. Patti Tilson and Jose Guardido provided excellent research assistances. Research for this project was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois.