Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/11499/47760
Title: Utility Maximizing Judges and Judicial Assistants: Testing Rational Choice Theory in 22 EU Countries
Authors: Deyneli, F.
Mascini, P.
Keywords: Caseload
Judge’s productivity
Judicial assistant
Rational choice theory
Staffing
structural equation modelling
Publisher: International Association for Court Administration
Abstract: By using a longitudinal bi-annual dataset (2012–2018) from the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (Cepej) for 22 EU countries, this study tests four hypotheses that have been derived from rational choice theory at individual and aggregated level. The positive associations between caseload and productivity support the hypothesis that judges sacrifice leisure or the quality of their decisions to achieve a reduction in backlogs. While the lack of association between the number of assistants and judge’s productivity supports the hypothesis that appointing new staff reduces caseload, thereby inducing judges to substitute time they spend on resolving cases for leisure or improving the quality of their decisions, while the positive association between the number of judges and productivity contradicts this hypothesis. The finding that assistant’s caseload negatively moderates the relationship between judge’s caseload and judge’s productivity supports the hypothesis that as the caseload of assistants increases, judges are releaved of more administrative tasks, thereby allowing judges to spend more time on leisure or improving the quality of their decisions rather than on resolving cases. Our findings suggest that assistants use similar trade-offs as judges and affect judges’ utility maximizing behaviour. Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
URI: https://doi.org/10.36745/ijca.361
https://hdl.handle.net/11499/47760
ISSN: 2156-7964
Appears in Collections:İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Koleksiyonu
Scopus İndeksli Yayınlar Koleksiyonu / Scopus Indexed Publications Collection

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