Kreis, Anthony; Szmer, John; Christensen, Robert K. --- "Comparative judicial efficiency: Examining case disposition in five countries’ courts of last resort" [2016] ELECD 338; in Eisenberg, Theodore; Ramello, B. Giovanni (eds), "Comparative Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 393

Book Title: Comparative Law and Economics

Editor(s): Eisenberg, Theodore; Ramello, B. Giovanni

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857932570

Section: Chapter 16

Section Title: Comparative judicial efficiency: Examining case disposition in five countries’ courts of last resort

Author(s): Kreis, Anthony; Szmer, John; Christensen, Robert K.

Number of pages: 14

Abstract/Description:

Ideally, decisions by governmental officials should maximize efficiency. In other words, they should reflect an equilibrium point that tries to maximize the quality of the outcome while minimizing costs and disposition times. While all of these aspects of efficiency are important, we focus primarily on the latter for a variety of reasons. For example, the swift administration of fair and equitable justice is a hallmark of good governance. As the institutions charged with impartially meting out justice, courts, and the judges who comprise them, have an awesome duty. It is for this reason that law and courts have drawn the interest of scholarly research assessing the extent to which a wide array of factors might impact the quality of judicial decisions. In the context of American appellate courts, scholars have conducted in-depth analyses to measure judicial quality and effectiveness with a wide array of metrics including mixed-outcome decisions (Lindquist, Haire, and Songer, 2007); issue agenda (Songer, Sheehan, and Haire, 2000); party advantage (Clermont and Eisenberg, 2002); the impact of ideology (Hettinger, Lindquist, and Martinek, 2004) and presidential appointment (Giles, Hettinger, and Peppers, 2001); precedent (Cross, 2007); statutes (Randazzo, Waterman, and Fine, 2006); litigant resources (Songer, Sheehan, and Haire, 1999); and judge gender, race (Collins and Moyer, 2008), and tenure (Kaheny, Haire, and Benesh, 2008).