Estimating the Effect of Leisure on Judicial Performance

Normative concerns often lead designers of political institutions to insulate judges from direct accountability and oversight that creates pressure on their decision making. However, such insulation undermines performance-relevant incentives and can give rise to shirking by judges. To understand the consequences of such shirking for the judicial process, we take advantage of an annual sporting event that creates differential distractions across judges. Using a difference-in-differences design, we show that when a judge's team is participating in the NCAA Mens' Basketball Tournament, the judge decides cases more slowly during the time the Tournament takes place. We also show those opinions are cited more negatively by subsequent decisions. These findings suggest a lack of direct accountability for their work product that is often part of political independence has deleterious consequences for the material judicial product. The findings also have implications for possible institutional design solutions