Daniel L. Chen

Priming Ideology: Why Presidential Elections Affect U.S. Judges

U.S. Presidential elections polarize U.S. Courts of Appeals judges, doubling their dissents, partisan voting, and lawmaking along partisan lines and increasing their reversal of District Court decisions (Berdejo and Chen 2016). Dissents are elevated for ten months before the Presidential elections. I develop a theoretical model showing that the salience of partisan identities drives these behavioral patterns. The polarizing effects are larger in close elections, non-existent in landslide elections, and reversed in wartime elections. I link judges to their states of residence and exploit variation in the timing and importance of a state during the electoral season. Dissents are elevated in swing states and in states that count heavily to winning the election, when these states are competitive. U.S. Senate elections, the timing of which also varies by state, further elevate dissents. I link administrative data on case progression and frequency of campaign advertisements in judges’ states of residence to proxy for a state’s importance during Presidential primaries. Dissents occur shortly before publication, increase with monthly increases in campaign ads, and appear for cases whose legal topic, economic activity, is most heavily covered by campaign ads. Finally, I link the cases to their potential resolution in the Supreme Court. Dissents before elections appear on more marginal cases that cite discretionary miscellaneous issues and procedural (rather than substantive) arguments, which the Supreme Court appears to recognize and only partly remedy. The behavioral changes of unelected Courts of Appeals judges are larger than the behavioral changes of elected judges running for re-election.

Government Expropriation Increases Economic Growth and Racial Inequality: Evidence from Eminent Domain

Is it justified for states to appropriate private property rights? If so, should governments regulate or expropriate? Competing models predict that government power of appropriation causes underinvestment, over investment, and growth. We use random assignment of U.S. federal court judges setting geographically-local precedent to document all three mechanisms. Government power increased expropriation, highway construction, property values, and growth, especially in government, transportation, and construction as well as agriculture, retail, and financial sectors, but increased displacement of racial minorities, who became more likely to be unemployed and live in public housing. These results are consistent with minority Democrat judges being more likely to strike down government expropriations while Republican former federal prosecutors being more likely to uphold them. However, government power to regulate did not increase displacement or racial inequality, while spurring growth and property values, suggesting that regulation relative to expropriation may be more Pareto improving.

Egoism vs. Altruism: Does Intermediation Reduce Altruism?

What are the consequences of intermediating moral responsibility through complex organizations or transactions? This paper examines whether individuals become less moral when they know their choices are obfuscated under randomization. It reports the results of a data entry experiment in an online labor market. Individuals enter data, grade another individual’s work, and decide to split a bonus. However, before they report their decision, they are randomized into settings with different degrees of intermediation. Graders who are told the split might implemented by a new procurement algorithm are less generous than graders who are told their split might be averaged or randomly selected among other graders. This finding is consistent with the Beckerian view of egoist motivations for altruism.

Perceived Masculinity Predicts U.S. Supreme Court Outcomes

Previous studies suggest a significant role of language in the court room, yet none has identified a definitive correlation between vocal characteristics and court outcomes. This paper demonstrates that voice-based snap judgments based solely on the introductory sentences of lawyers arguing in front of the Supreme Court of the United States predict outcomes in the Court. In this study, participants rated the opening statement of male advocates arguing before the Supreme Court between 1998 and 2012 in terms of masculinity, attractiveness, confidence, intelligence, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness. We found significant correlation between vocal characteristics and court outcomes and the correlation is specific to perceived masculinity even when judgment of masculinity is based only on less than three seconds of exposure to a lawyer’s speech sample. Specifically, male advocates are more likely to win when they are perceived as less masculine. No other personality dimension predicts court outcomes. While this study does not aim to establish any causal connections, our findings suggest that vocal characteristics may be relevant in even as solemn a setting as the Supreme Court of the United States.