Journal of Empirical Legal Studies最新文献

Nudging interventions typically presume some asymmetry of sophistication and power between the choice architect and the nudged. But the nudged need not be relegated to a passive role. We present evidence that individuals have a capacity to counter their biases, and even to use them to their advantage. This capacity for behavioral self-management (“BSM”) can allow them to act as the choice architects of their future-self. In our study, we provide participants with the autonomy to choose among a variety of loss- and gain-framed contracts that govern the terms under which they perform a real effort task. The results show that subjects strategically harness their own loss aversion to counter their present bias and significantly improve their performance. The loss-framed contracts give individuals a tool they can use to self-nudge. This possibility of self-nudging should widen our perspective on biases. Biases can cause cognitive error and dampen motivation, but they can also be a valuable tool for individual decision making. And giving subjects the autonomy to choose their favored contract adds to the effectiveness of their BSM strategy. We show that subjects' experience self-determination utility separate from performance benefits driven by a better adjustment of work tasks to subjects' production functions. To demonstrate the policy relevance of our results, we expand on an application of BSM strategies to retirement savings plans, which we suggest may lift participation and savings rates at no additional cost.

Despite the importance and neutrality of constitutional rights, empirical research suggests that ideological inclinations unduly affect their assessment and application. In this study, we conducted two experiments in order to investigate the nature of the ideological bias in a constitutionally relevant decision (right-to-demonstration), and how to mitigate it. We find that ideological bias is driven by in-group favoritism. In addition, we find that prior commitment, through a signed declaration, to be impartial or to prioritize constitutional rights encourages participants not to disfavor out-groups. On the other hand, we do not find evidence that using a temporary blinding procedure mitigates the ideological bias.

The present study is the first large-scale empirical legal analysis of tax incentives for charitable giving in Switzerland, and one of the few studies globally. Using unique longitudinal data including household income and wealth of the entire taxpayers' population of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, we study patterns of charitable deductions and characteristics of donors making such deductions. Our study period extends over a decade (2001-2011), this period also encompassing a legal reform that raised ceilings for charitable deductions. We observe that an overwhelming majority of donors make deductions that never reach the legal ceiling, especially after the reform. Nonetheless, we identify a subset of donors that are potentially tax-incentive sensitive, because their deductions constantly reach (or exceed) this ceiling. Deductions made by those donors amount to 30%–54% of all such deductions in the canton of Geneva. If compared to all donors, the donors in this particular subset are older (in their mid-late 60s), mostly single, wealthier and more regular givers (deducters). Analyzing the deduction patterns in the entire donors' population, we observe that deducting charitable donations have become increasingly popular during the study period. In addition, we find that donors' relative generosity tends to decrease when their income and wealth increase. Those results have important tax policy implications and relevance in modeling tax incentives for charitable giving, in both Switzerland and elsewhere.

Previous research on prosecutorial decision-making has detailed prosecutors' considerable discretionary power along with their desire to avoid uncertain outcomes. However, few studies have applied this decision-making framework to criminal case outcomes. We addressed this gap by analyzing prosecutors' charging decisions and charge dispositions through the lens of a unique crime: sex trafficking. In the study, we examined whether the type of statute under which federal prosecutors may choose to charge defendants in sex trafficking-related cases is associated with the disposition of those charges. We used datasets from the Federal Justice Statistics Program for years 1994-2014 in multilevel logistic regession models that adjusted for factors relevant to prosecutorial decision-making. We then compared the dispositions of charges filed in sex trafficking-related cases and asked: Are charges filed under higher-penalty statutes significantly associated with dispositions that are more favorable to the prosecution? Or is the association present for lower-penalty statutes instead? Results from our first model, using a dataset with all available charges and dispositions for a 21-year period, show that when a charge is filed under a higher-penalty statute, the adjusted odds that its disposition is more favorable to the prosecution are about 60% higher than the odds for charges filed under lower-penalty statutes. Results from a subset of charge data linked to demographic characteristics show that the adjusted odds of obtaining a favorable charge disposition are 65% lower when the defendant is female. These associations suggest that higher-penalty statutes in sex trafficking-related cases, with their concomitant higher burdens of proof, do not necessarily implicate greater uncertainty in outcomes. Prosecutors have been using their discretion to charge under the more punitive statutes for many years and these cases have relatively high probabilities of favorable outcomes. This discretion may nevertheless be curbed by defendant characteristics beyond the prosecutor's control, including gender.

This paper examines the impact of police funding on the fraction of homicides that are cleared by arrest. Using data covering homicides in approximately 50 of the largest US cities from 2007 to 2017, I find no evidence that greater police funding resulted in higher homicide clearance rates. This finding is robust to linear regression and instrumental variable approaches, different ways to measure police budgets, and across victims of different races and in different types of neighborhoods. In summary, the way large city police departments have historically spent their funds, more funding has not helped catch more murderers.

This study examines how a rapid change in social perceptions of a national-origin group triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic influenced immigration judges' decision-making in US removal proceedings. Using originally compiled court data on removal proceedings decided between 2019 and 2020, we applied a difference-in-differences framework to produce three key findings. First, consistent with theory of event stigma, Chinese respondents experienced a significantly higher removal rate during the early pandemic period. Second, consistent with theory of associative stigma, East and Southeast (E/SE) Asian respondents also experienced a significantly higher removal rate during the early pandemic period. Third, the removal rate declined for both Chinese and E/SE respondents during the later pandemic period, but this decline was more gradual and lagged for E/SE Asian than for Chinese respondents. Finally, increases in the number of cases involving Chinese respondents increased the removal rate for E/SE Asian respondents during the early months of the pandemic. The last two findings suggest that associative or indirect stigmatization may be harder to combat than direct stigmatization owing to the implicit nature of bias underlying associative stigma. This study highlights the socially constructed nature of national origin groups, and the importance of both direct and indirect stigmatization in the production of social inequality.

This paper studies whether doctors prescribe antibiotics to protect themselves against potential malpractice claims. Using data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey on a representative sample of doctor visits from 1993 to 2011, I find that doctors are significantly less likely to prescribe antibiotics following tort reforms that reduce malpractice pressure. The changing prescribing patterns appear to have no adverse effects on patient health outcomes over the same time period. Almost 100 million hospital records from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample reveal little to no effects of tort reforms on hospital stays involving conditions that can potentially be avoided through the timely use of antibiotics. Taken together, these findings suggest that malpractice pressure induces doctors to prescribe antibiotics that are medically unnecessary, thereby contributing to the rise in antibiotic resistance.

We conduct comprehensive analyses on whether and how the judicial foreclosure procedure helps subprime mortgage borrowers to reinstate their delinquent loans outside foreclosure liquidation. Even though the transition rates of various exit types are all higher in non-judicial states, we argue such higher rates can be mechanically driven by the faster shrinking pool of delinquent mortgages in non-judicial states over time. Based on the cumulative proportions of various exit types during a period of up to 5 years post the mortgage first become 90 days past due, we find that judicial states offer more opportunities for delinquent borrowers to reinstate their loans outside foreclosure liquidation, especially during a housing market downturn. Cures, modifications, and paid-offs were all important alternative ways to resolve serious delinquencies during 2007–2008. After modifications became widely available in 2009, loan modifications became the most important alternative for subprime borrowers to reinstate their delinquent mortgages outside foreclosure liquidation. The lion's share of the judicial foreclosure benefit shows up after the start of the foreclosure process.

This article uncovers the role of framing in the determination of negligence. Negligence disputes fall into two categories: cases in which injurers inflicted harm while seeking to avoid a loss to themselves (loss frame) and those in which they were seeking to obtain a personal gain (gain frame). We develop a theoretical framework whereby the frame of the injurer's behavior shapes negligence determinations in two ways. First, people are less likely to find an injurer negligent in a loss than in a gain frame. This is because, due to loss aversion, they find behavior more reasonable if done to avoid a loss than to obtain a gain. Second, people accord greater weight to the efficiency of the injurer's behavior in a loss frame than in a gain frame. This is because a comparison between the victim's harm and the injurer's benefit is more salient when both parties face a loss (loss frame). A series of experiments supported both hypotheses as well as the underlying mechanism. We discuss the implications of our findings and suggest that they may relate to the seemingly inconsistent case law on the role of efficiency considerations in negligence cases.