Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the US Supreme Court
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23344779 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jeffrey R Lax (0000-0001-9887-5662, Columbia University, corresponding author), Cate M Cameron (0000-0003-1476-5744, Princeton University) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 276-302 |
| Publication date | 2007-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Law Economics and Organization (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1465-7341 • E-ISSN: 8756-6222 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jleo/ewm023 |
| OpenAlex | W3123258953 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 65 |
| References cited | 10 |
We formulate a new game-theoretic model of bargaining on the US Supreme Court. In the model, a degree of monopoly power over policy endogenously accrues to the assigned writer despite an “open rule” permitting other justices to make counteroffers. We assume justices are motivated ultimately by a concern for judicial policy, but that the policy impact of an opinion depends partly on its persuasiveness, clarity, and craftsmanship—its legal quality. The effort cost of producing a high-quality opinion creates a wedge that the assignee can exploit to move an opinion from the median without provoking a winning counteroffer. We use this bargaining model as the foundation for a formal analysis of opinion assignment. Both the bargaining and opinion assignment models display rich and tractable comparative statics, allowing them to explain well-known empirical regularities, as well as to generate new propositions, all within a unified and internally consistent framework.
Columbia university · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Supreme court · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Legal and Constitutional Studies
The Supreme Court's Many Median Justices
The Downstream Effects of Certiorari
Ideology and Agenda Setting in the High Court of Australia
Measuring Judicial Appeasement of the United States Supreme Court
Authorial control of the Supreme Court
The Judging Game
Should Like Cases Be Decided Alike? A Formal Analysis of Formal Equality
The Future Matters
How the Chamber System at the CJEU Undermines the Consistency of the Court’s Application of EU Law
A Matter of Opinion? How Unexpected Opinion Authors Influence Support for Supreme Court Decisions
The Czech Constitutional Court Database
How the Supreme Court Alters Opinion Language to Evade Congressional Review
Measuring the Political Salience of Supreme Court Cases
Delegation, Compliance, and Judicial Decision Making in the Court of Justice of the European Union
Status characteristics and their intersectionality
Of Whites and men
The Strategic Analysis of Judicial Decisions
The politics of the Court of Justice of the European Union
Holding versus Dicta
Policy-Development Monopolies
Measuring Policy Content on the U.S. Supreme Court
Guilt and Guilty Pleas
Minority will? A model of influential dissenting opinions
Veto players and policy development
Narrow versus broad judicial decisions
Building legitimacy
Precedent in International Courts
Inferring Individual Preferences from Group Decisions
Strategic Defiance and Compliance in the U.S. Courts of Appeals
Beyond Consensus
Bargaining Power in the Supreme Court
The Regulation and Self-Regulation of a Complex Industry
Issue Divisions and US Supreme Court Decision Making
Ducking Trouble
Estimating Vote-Specific Preferences from Roll-Call Data Using Conditional Autoregressive Priors
The Swing Justice
Legal Doctrine on Collegial Courts
Political Constraints on Legal Doctrine
A Theory of Opinion Writing in a Political Hierarchy
Consensus and Cooperation on State Supreme Courts
Judicial Independence and Opinion Clarity on State Supreme Courts
Case selection and Supreme Court pivots
Do Policy Messengers Matter? Majority Opinion Writers as Policy Cues in Public Agreement with Supreme Court Decisions
The Influence of Precedent on State Supreme Courts
Toward an Actor-Based Measure of Supreme Court Case Salience
Measuring Ideological Polarization on the United States Supreme Court
Judicial Institutions and the Political Economy of Retirements
A theory of policy sabotage
Competing signals in the judicial hierarchy
Race and Gender Bias in Three Administrative Contexts
Managing the Supreme Court
Reconsidering Judicial Preferences
The New Judicial Politics of Legal Doctrine
Ideological Competition and Conflict in the Judicial Hierarchy
Racial Diversity and Judicial Influence on Appellate Courts
Policy‐Specific Information and Informal Agenda Power
Spatial Models of Legislative Effectiveness
Locating Supreme Court Opinions in Doctrine Space
Who Controls the Content of Supreme Court Opinions
Going into Government
Sound the Alarm? Judicial Decisions Regarding Publication and Dissent
Opinion Construction in the Roberts Court
Measuring Precedent in a Judicial Hierarchy
Legal Realism for Economists
Constructing Legal Rules on Appellate Courts
Elements of judicial strategy
Information and Legislative Organization
The Theory of Committees and Elections
Political resource allocation, controlled agendas, and the status quo
How to Do Things with Rules
"Acclimation Effects" for Supreme Court Justices
"Freshman Effects" for Supreme Court Justices
The Norm of Stare Decisis
Constructing Legal Rules on Appellate Courts
Strategic Auditing in a Political Hierarchy
| Unique citing works | 65 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,42 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2026 (20) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 64 |