IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlstud/doi10.1086-668507.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Law and Policy of Judicial Retirement: An Empirical Study

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen J. Choi
  • Mitu Gulati
  • Eric A. Posner

Abstract

Lifetime tenure maximizes judicial independence by shielding judges from political pressures but creates problems of its own. Judges with independence may implement their political preferences. Judges may remain in office after their abilities degrade with age. The U.S. federal system addresses these problems in an indirect way. When judges' pensions vest, they receive full pay regardless of whether they work. This limits some of the harmful effects of judicial independence by encouraging judges to vacate their offices when they become old and by causing judges who find their work burdensome to leave office. We test the benefits and costs of this system for federal district judges. We find that the vesting system causes judges to retire as expected, that higher quality and wealthier judges are less sensitive to the financial incentives of the system, and that some judges appear to time retirement so that the president will appoint like-minded judges.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen J. Choi & Mitu Gulati & Eric A. Posner, 2013. "The Law and Policy of Judicial Retirement: An Empirical Study," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 111-150.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/668507
    DOI: 10.1086/668507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/668507
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/668507
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/668507?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. Fogel,Robert William, 2004. "The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521004886, September.
    2. Albert Yoon, 2005. "As You Like It: Senior Federal Judges and the Political Economy of Judicial Tenure," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(3), pages 495-549, November.
    3. 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.
    4. Richard T. Boylan, 2004. "Do the Sentencing Guidelines Influence the Retirement Decisions of Federal Judges?," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 231-253, January.
    5. Posner, Richard A., 1995. "Aging and Old Age," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226675664, Febrero.
    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. Datta, Pratik & Surya Prakash B. S. & Sane, Renuka, 2017. "Understanding Judicial Delay at the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal in India," Working Papers 17/208, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.

    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. Richard L. Vining, 2009. "Politics, Pragmatism, and Departures from the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 1954–2004," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(4), pages 834-853, December.
    2. Crystal S. Yang, 2016. "Resource Constraints and the Criminal Justice System: Evidence from Judicial Vacancies," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 289-332, November.
    3. Griffin Edwards, 2014. "Doing Their Duty: An Empirical Analysis of the Unintended Effect of Tarasoff v. Regents on Homicidal Activity," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(2), pages 321-348.
    4. Janet Currie & Tom Vogl, 2013. "Early-Life Health and Adult Circumstance in Developing Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 1-36, May.
    5. Hui Zheng, 2014. "Aging in the Context of Cohort Evolution and Mortality Selection," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(4), pages 1295-1317, August.
    6. Weis, Claude & Axhausen, Kay W., 2009. "Induced travel demand: Evidence from a pseudo panel data based structural equations model," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 8-18.
    7. Jedwab, Remi & Vollrath, Dietrich, 2015. "Urbanization without growth in historical perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-21.
    8. Ward, W. Peter, 2013. "Stature, migration and human welfare in South China, 1850–1930," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 488-501.
    9. Ian Gazeley & Rose Holmes & Andrew Newell & Kevin Reynolds & Hector Gutierrez Rufrancos, 2023. "Escaping from hunger before WW1: the nutritional transition and living standards in Western Europe and USA in the late nineteenth century," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(3), pages 533-565, September.
    10. David Neumark & Ian Burn & Patrick Button & Nanneh Chehras, 2016. "Do State Laws Protecting Older Workers from Discrimination Reduce Age Discrimination in Hiring? Experimental (and Nonexperimental) Evidence," Working Papers wp349, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    11. Borowiecki, Karol Jan & Kavetsos, Georgios, 2015. "In fatal pursuit of immortal fame: Peer competition and early mortality of music composers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 30-42.
    12. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2015. "World Human Development: 1870–2007," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 220-247, June.
    13. Linares, Claudia & Su, Dejun, 2005. "Body mass index and health among Union Army veterans: 1891-1905," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 367-387, December.
    14. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    15. Max Schanzenbach, 2005. "Racial and Sex Disparities in Prison Sentences: The Effect of District-Level Judicial Demographics," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 57-92, January.
    16. Andreas Weigl, 2012. "Kliometrie in der Erweiterung," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 38(2), pages 423-434.
    17. Stefan Felder & Andreas Werblow, 2009. "The Marginal Cost of Saving a Life in Health Care: Age, Gender and Regional Differences in Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 145(II), pages 137-153, June.
    18. Christoph Engel, 2024. "The German Constitutional Court – Activist, but not Partisan?," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2024_04, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    19. Baten, Joerg & Llorca-Jaña, Manuel, 2021. "Inequality, low-intensity immigration and human capital formation in the regions of Chile, 1820-1939," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    20. Gori, Luca & Sodini, Mauro, 2021. "A Contribution To The Theory Of Fertility And Economic Development," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 753-775, April.

    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:jlstud:doi:10.1086/668507. 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/JLS .

    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.