This paper analyzes trial by poison ingestion, or “sassywood,” as an institution of criminal justice in contemporary Liberia. We argue that effective criminal justice institutions must satisfy three conditions: they must be accessible to citizens, incentivize judicial administrators to...

Understanding and minimizing the transaction costs of policy implementation are critical for reducing tropical forest losses. As the international community prepares to launch REDD+, a global initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from tropical deforestation, policymakers need to pay...

This paper examines the impact of jury racial composition on trial outcomes using a unique data set of felony trials in Florida between 2000 and 2010. We utilize a research design that exploits day-to-day variation in the composition of the <i>jury pool</i> to isolate quasi-random variation in the...

This article considers how judges' political and racial backgrounds intersect with offender race under the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Using variation in judges' political affiliation and race at the district level and significant changes to Guidelines enforcement, I find that...

The burden of proof is a central feature of adjudication, and analogues exist in many other settings. It constitutes an important but largely unappreciated policy instrument that interacts with the level of enforcement effort and magnitude of sanctions in controlling harmful activity. Models are...

Das deutsche System der industriellen Beziehungen weist im internationalen Vergleich gemeinhin ein hohes Mass an Verrechtlichung auf. Umso ueberraschender ist der Umstand, dass das Recht und seine Akteure, Institutionen und Verfahren in der Forschung ueber Arbeitsbeziehungen seit Jahrzehnten...

As our societies face new challenges and make new demands from policies addressing international investment, there is a new urgency to profoundly reconsider treaties addressing investment. This paper was prepared originally as background for initial inter-governmental and public discussions at...

The empirical literature on education and crime suggests that both criminal behavior and educational attainment are transferred from parents to children. However, the impact of criminal behavior of parents on educational outcomes of children is generally ignored, even though the entailed social...

This paper examines one particular aspect of the Greek courts: the time they need to dispose cases. As an indirect measure for the time needed to dispose cases, we use the ratio of cases remaining at the end of the year to total cases introduced. Using this metric, we document a steady increase...

According to recent act of trainer/instructor profession deregulation in Poland, no courses or exams are required to become a trainer or sport instructor. After changes, any common person is allowed to practice sports coaching. The aim of the research was to become familiar with the parents...