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The Intersection Of Judicial Attitudes And Litigant Selection Theories: Explaining U.S. Supreme Court Decision Making, Jeff L. Yates, Elizabeth Coggins Jan 2009

The Intersection Of Judicial Attitudes And Litigant Selection Theories: Explaining U.S. Supreme Court Decision Making, Jeff L. Yates, Elizabeth Coggins

Jeff L Yates

Two prominent theories of legal decision making provide seemingly contradictory explanations for judicial outcomes. In political science, the Attitudinal Model suggests that judicial outcomes are driven by judges' sincere policy preferences -- judges bring their ideological inclinations to the decision making process and their case outcome choices largely reflect these policy preferences. In contrast, in the law and economics literature, Priest and Klein's well-known Selection Hypothesis posits that court outcomes are largely driven by the litigants' strategic choices in the selection of cases for formal dispute or adjudication -- forward thinking litigants settle cases where potential judicial outcomes are readily …


Wikitruth Through Wikiorder, David A. Hoffman, Salil K. Mehra Jan 2009

Wikitruth Through Wikiorder, David A. Hoffman, Salil K. Mehra

All Faculty Scholarship

How does large-scale social production coordinate individual behavior to produce public goods? Hardin (1968) denied that the creation of public goods absent markets or the State is possible. Benkler (2006), Shirky (2008), Zittrain (2008), and Lessig (2008) recently countered that the needed coordination might emerge though social norms. However, the means to this coordination is under-theorized. Focusing on Wikipedia, we argue that the site’s dispute resolution process is an important force in promoting the public good it produces, i.e., a large number of relatively accurate public encyclopedia articles. We describe the development and shape of Wikipedia’s existing dispute resolution system. …


The Effects Of Tort Reform On Medical Malpractice Insurers’ Ultimate Losses, Patricia Born, W. Kip Viscusi, Tom Baker Jan 2009

The Effects Of Tort Reform On Medical Malpractice Insurers’ Ultimate Losses, Patricia Born, W. Kip Viscusi, Tom Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

Whereas the literature evaluating the effect of tort reforms has focused on reported incurred losses, this paper examines the long run effects using a comprehensive sample by state of individual firms writing medical malpractice insurance from 1984-2003. The long run effects of reforms are greater than insurers' expected effects, as five year developed losses and ten year developed losses are below the initially reported incurred losses for those years following reform measures. The quantile regressions show the greatest effects of joint and several liability limits, noneconomic damages caps, and punitive damages reforms for the firms that are at the high …