Journal: The Journal of Law & Economics

Abbreviation

J. law econ

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Journal Volumes

ISSN

0022-2186
1537-5285

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Publications 1 - 6 of 6
  • Does Terror Threaten Human Rights?
    Item type: Journal Article
    Dreher, Axel; Gassebner, Martin; Siemers, Lars-H. (2010)
    The Journal of Law & Economics
  • Independent Actor or Agent? An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of U.S. Interests on International Monetary Fund Conditions
    Item type: Journal Article
    Dreher, Axel; Jensen, Nathan M. (2007)
    The Journal of Law & Economics
  • Intrinsic Motivation in Public Service: Theory and Evidence from State Supreme Courts
    Item type: Journal Article
    Ash, Elliott; MacLeod, W. Bentley (2015)
    The Journal of Law & Economics
    This paper provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the intrinsic preferences of state appellate court judges. We construct a panel data set using published decisions from state supreme court cases merged with institutional and biographical information on all (1,636) state supreme court judges for the 50 states of the United States from 1947 to 1994. We estimate the effects of changes in judge employment conditions on a number of measures of judicial performance. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that judges are intrinsically motivated to provide high-quality decisions, and that at the margin they prefer quality over quantity. When judges face less time pressure, they write more well-researched opinions that are cited more often by later judges. When judges are up for election then performance falls, suggesting that election politics take time away from judging work – rather than providing an incentive for good performance. These effects are strongest when judges have more discretion to select their case portfolio, consistent with psychological theories that posit a negative effect of contingency on motivation (e.g. Deci, 1971).
  • Culture and Compliance: Evidence from the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme
    Item type: Journal Article
    Jo, Ara (2021)
    The Journal of Law & Economics
    I study the role of culture in firms’ compliance decisions in the context of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, an international regulation implemented in multiple countries with different levels of cultural indicators. To probe causality, I look within countries and exploit the differences in the locations of central headquarters of multinational firms. Using trust as a main cultural indicator, this exercise reveals that installations owned by firms headquartered in high-trust countries were more likely to comply with the regulation than those owned by firms headquartered in low-trust countries, even when they operated in the same geographic area. Using other relevant indicators of culture such as morality and civic virtue yields similar results, which suggests that culture, measured by several indicators, exerts influence on the compliance behavior of firms.
  • Discrimination in the Patent System: Evidence from Standard-Essential Patents
    Item type: Journal Article
    de Rassenfosse, Gaétan; Raiteri, Emilio; Bekkers, Rudi (2023)
    The Journal of Law & Economics
    This paper tests for discrimination against foreigners in the patent system. It focuses on patent applications filed in China for which the owner publicly discloses that the patents are or may become essential to the implementation of a technical standard. Such standard-essential patents are of particularly high importance to the owner. We use the timing of disclosure to a leading standard-setting organization as a source of econometric identification and carry out extensive tests to ensure the exogeneity of timing. We find that foreign patent applications are significantly less likely to be granted by the Chinese patent office if their owners disclose them to be essential to a standard before the substantive examination starts. Furthermore, the patent office spends, on average, 1 more year on the examination of such patents, and the scope of the patents is more extensively reduced. Our findings contribute to the emerging discussion on technology protectionism.
  • Promises, Expectations, and Social Cooperation
    Item type: Journal Article
    Mischkowski, Dorothee; Stone, Rebecca; Stremitzer, Alexander (2019)
    The Journal of Law & Economics
    Promising serves as an important commitment mechanism by operating on a potential cheater’s internal value system. We present experimental evidence on why people keep their promises, identifying three motives. First, people feel duty bound to keep their promises regardless of whether promisees expect them to do so (promising per se effect). Second, they care about not disappointing promisees’ expectations regardless of whether those expectations were induced by the promise (expectations per se effect). Third, they are even more motivated to avoid disappointing promisees’ expectations when those expectations were induced by a promise (interaction effect). Clear evidence of some of these effects has eluded the prior literature because of limitations inherent to the experimental methods employed. We sidestep those difficulties by using a novel between-subject vignette design. Our results suggest that promising may contribute to the self-reinforcing creation of trust as expectations of performance encourage promise keeping and vice versa.
Publications 1 - 6 of 6