This study shows that the political preferences of those responsible for retaining judges are strongly associated with judicial voting. The evidence supports the widespread belief that judges respond to political pressure in an effort to be reelected or reappointed. Using a data set of decisions...

I examine two important questions in the capital punishment literature: what kinds of murders are deterred and what effect does the length of the death row wait have on deterrence? I use monthly murder and execution data that measure deterrence more precisely than the annual data of most capital...

Does capital punishment deter capital crimes? We use panel data covering the fifty states duringthe period 1960-2000 period to examine the issue. Our study is novel in four ways. First, we estimate the moratorium's full effect by using both pre- and postmoratorium evidence. Second, we exploit...

Theory suggests that tort reform could have two possible impacts on accidents. Reforms could increase accidents as tortfeasors internalize less of the cost of externalities and have less incentive to reduce the risk of accidents. Alternatively, tort reforms could decrease accidents as lower...

Existing studies of judicial decisionmaking have found that elected judges are more likely to dissent and to oppose judges from the same party. These findings are explained by elected judges having stronger preferences for risk or being more independent. In this paper, I offer an alternative...

Criminal Law and Economics applies economic theory to explain crime, law enforcement, criminal law and criminal procedure. This pathbreaking book draws together sixteen chapters by leading scholars in the field, summarizing theoretical and empirical work researched to date on criminal law and...