IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/v39y1996i2p435-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Congressional Control of the Courts: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Expansion of the Federal Judiciary

Author

Listed:
  • de Figueiredo, John M
  • Tiller, Emerson H

Abstract

Congress has many available tools to influence the federal judiciary. In this article, we consider Congress' ability to balance, or stack, the courts through the creation of federal judgeships. While caseload pressure often produces the need for more judgeships, we demonstrate that political party alignment between Congress and the president often determines the timing of the judicial expansion. The net effect of expanding during political alignment is to speed up changes in the political balance of the judiciary in favor of the current Congress. We also examine the determinants of expansion size and show that both political alignment and caseload pressure influence Congress' decision regarding how many judgeships to add. Copyright 1996 by the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • de Figueiredo, John M & Tiller, Emerson H, 1996. "Congressional Control of the Courts: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Expansion of the Federal Judiciary," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 435-462, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:39:y:1996:i:2:p:435-62
    DOI: 10.1086/467355
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/467355
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/467355?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stigler, George J, 1992. "Law or Economics?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 455-468, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John M. de Figueiredo, 2009. "Integrated Political Strategy," NBER Working Papers 15053, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. J. Mark Ramseyer & Eric B. Rasmusen, 2001. "When are Judges and Bureaucrats Left Independent? Theory and History from Imperial Japan, Postwar Japan, and the United States," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-126, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    3. Brian Goff, 2006. "Supreme Court consensus and dissent: Estimating the role of the selection screen," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 367-383, June.
    4. Dimitrova-Grajzl, Valentina & Grajzl, Peter & Slavov, Atanas & Zajc, Katarina, 2016. "Courts in a transition economy: Case disposition and the quantity–quality tradeoff in Bulgaria," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 18-38.
    5. Maxwell Palmer, 2016. "Does the Chief Justice Make Partisan Appointments to Special Courts and Panels?," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(1), pages 153-177, March.
    6. Álvaro Bustos & Tonja Jacobi, 2014. "A Theory of Judicial Retirement," Documentos de Trabajo 451, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    7. Dimitrova-Grajzl, Valentina & Grajzl, Peter & Sustersic, Janez & Zajc, Katarina, 2012. "Court output, judicial staffing, and the demand for court services: Evidence from Slovenian courts of first instance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 19-29.
    8. Joanna M. Shepherd, 2009. "The Influence of Retention Politics on Judges' Voting," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(1), pages 169-206, January.
    9. Brian Goff, 2005. "Supreme Court consensus and dissent: Estimating the role of the selection screen," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 483-499, March.
    10. Beenstock, Michael & Haitovsky, Yoel, 2004. "Does the appointment of judges increase the output of the judiciary?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 351-369, September.
    11. Carney, Richard, 2004. "Economic Backwardness in Security Perspective," MPRA Paper 3279, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Christian Barrère, 2001. "Commoditisation and judiciarisation: the judicial regulation of market relations [Marchandisation et judiciarisation : la régulation judiciaire des relations marchandes]," Post-Print hal-02615448, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Élodie Bertrand, 2006. "La thèse d'efficience du « théorème de Coase ». Quelle critique de la microéconomie ?," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(5), pages 983-1007.
    2. Wolfgang Drechsler, 2009. "Towards the Law & Economics of development: Ragnar Nurkse (1907–1959)," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 19-37, August.
    3. Williamson, Oliver E., 2010. "Transaction Cost Economics: The Natural Progression," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 215-226.
    4. Lueck, Dean, 1995. "The Rule of First Possession and the Design of the Law," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 393-436, October.
    5. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2011. "Appropriation, violent enforcement, and transaction costs: a critical survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 227-253, April.
    6. David Emanuel Andersson, 2021. "Spontaneous Order and the Hayekian Challenge to Interdisciplinary Social Scientists," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 49(4), pages 363-375, December.
    7. Vlad Tarko & Kyle O’Donnell, 2019. "Escape from Europe: a calculus of consent model of the origins of liberal institutions in the North American colonies," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 70-95, March.
    8. Bruce Benson, 1999. "To Arbitrate or To Litigate: That Is the Question," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 91-151, September.
    9. Alex Coad, 2007. "Firm Growth: a Survey," Post-Print halshs-00155762, HAL.
    10. Williamson, Oliver E., 1995. "Some uneasiness with the Coase Theorem: Comment," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 9-11, May.
    11. Clara Jace, 2019. "An economic theory of economic analysis: the case of the School of Salamanca," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 375-397, December.
    12. Valentiny, Pál, 2018. "Coase-kép másképp: középpontban a közszolgáltatások [Coase otherwise: Public utilities]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(4), pages 346-381.
    13. Brian C. Albrecht & Joshua R. Hendrickson & Alexander William Salter, 2022. "Evolution, uncertainty, and the asymptotic efficiency of policy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 169-188, July.
    14. Leeson, Peter T., 2014. "Human Sacrifice," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 1(1-2), pages 137-165, January.
    15. Francesco Salsano, 2020. "Monetary Policy Capture and Political Stabilization," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, January.
    16. Prashant Bansode, 2013. "Perverse Consequences of Well Intentioned Regulation: Evidence from India's Child Labor Ban," Working Papers id:5555, eSocialSciences.
    17. Mancur Olson, 1996. "Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk: Why Some Nations Are Rich, and Others Poor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 3-24, Spring.
    18. Thierry Kirat & Frédéric Marty, 2006. "La mise en œuvre de la réglementation : une lecture économico-juridique du secteur électrique et des marchés publics," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(4), pages 101-116.
    19. Marciano, Alain & Melcarne, Alessandro & Ramello, Giovanni B., 2020. "Justice Without Romance: The History Of The Economic Analyses Of Judges’ Behavior, 1960–1993," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 261-282, June.
    20. Peter Boettke & Nicholas Snow, 2014. "Political economy and the science of association: A suggested reconstruction of public choice through the alliance of the Vienna, Virginia, and Bloomington schools of political economy," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 97-110, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:39:y:1996:i:2:p:435-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.