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Peer Effects on the United States Supreme Court

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Holden

    (UNSW Business School)

  • Michael Keane

    (UNSW Business School)

  • Matthew Lilley

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

Using data on essentially every US Supreme Court decision since 1946, we estimate a model of peer effects on the Court. We consider both the impact of justice ideology and justice votes on the votes of their peers. To identify these peer effects we use two instruments that generate plausibly exogenous variation in the peer group itself, or in the votes of peers. The first instrument utilizes the fact that the composition of the Court varies from case to case due to recusals or absences for health reasons. The second utilizes the fact that many justices previously sat on Federal Circuit Courts. Those who served on the Circuit Courts for short (long) periods of time are empirically much more (less) likely to affirm decisions from their “home” court. We find large peer effects. Replacing a single justice with one who votes in a conservative direction 10 percentage points more frequently increases the probability that each other justice votes conservative by 1.6 percentage points. Further, a 10% increase in the probability that a given justice votes conservative leads to a 1.1 percentage point increase in the probability that each other justice votes conservative. This indirect effect increases the share of cases with a conservative outcome by 3.6 percentage points (excluding the direct effect of the new justice). In general, we find indirect effects are large relative to the direct mechanical effect of a justice’s own vote.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Holden & Michael Keane & Matthew Lilley, 2020. "Peer Effects on the United States Supreme Court," Discussion Papers 2019-01b, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    • Handle: RePEc:swe:wpaper:2019-01b
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    File URL: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/RePEc/papers/2019-01b.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Supreme Court; Peer Effects; Recusal;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)

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