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The Pursuit of Justice: Law and Economics of Legal Institutions PDF

313 Pages·2010·3.813 MB·English
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THE PURSUIT OF JUSTICE THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE is a non-profit, non-partisan, scholarly re search and edu ca tional or ga - ni za tion that spons ors com pre hen sive stud ies in po liti - cal econ omy. Our mission is to boldly advance peaceful, prosperous, and free societies, grounded in a commitment to human worth and dignity. Politicized decision-making in soc ie ty has conf ined public debate to a narrow rec ons id- era tion of exi sti ng policies. Given the prev aili ng influence of partisan interests, little social innovation has oc curred. In order to understand both the nature of and possible solutions to major public issues, the Independent Institute adheres to the highest standards of in de pen- d ent inquiry, re gard less of political or social biases and con ven tions. The resulting stud ies are widely dis trib uted as books and other publications, and are debated in numerous conference and m edia prog rams. Through this unc omm on depth and clarity, the Ind ep end ent Ins tit ute is redefining public de bate and fostering new and ef fec tive directions for gov ern ment reform. FOUNDER & PRESIDENT George Gilder Paul H. Rubin David J. Theroux discovery institute emory university RESEARCH DIRECTOR Nathan Glazer Bruce M. Russett harvard university yale university Alexander Tabarrok Ronald Hamowy SENIOR FELLOWS Pascal Salin university of alberta, canada university of paris, france Bruce L. Benson Steve H. Hanke Ivan Eland johns hopkins university Vernon L. Smith Robert Higgs george mason university James J. Heckman Robert H. Nelson university of chicago Pablo T. Spiller Charles V. Peña university of california, William F. Shughart II H. Robert Heller berkeley Alvaro Vargas Llosa sonic automotive Richard K. Vedder Deirdre N. McCloskey Joel H. Spring ACADEMIC ADVISORS university of illinois, chicago state university of new york, old westbury Herman Belz J. Huston McCulloch university of maryland ohio state university Richard L. Stroup north carolina state Thomas E. Borcherding Forrest McDonald university claremont graduate school university of alabama Thomas S. Szasz Boudewijn Bouckaert Thomas Gale Moore state university of new york, university of ghent, belgium hoover institution syracuse James M. Buchanan Charles Murray Robert D. Tollison george mason university american enterprise institute clemson university Allan C. Carlson Michael J. Novak, Jr. Arnold S. Trebach howard center american enterprise institute american university Robert D. Cooter June E. O’Neill Gordon Tullock university of california, baruch college george mason university berkeley Charles E. Phelps Robert W. Crandall university of rochester Richard E. Wagner brookings institution george mason university Paul Craig Roberts Richard A. Epstein institute for political Walter E. Williams university of chicago economy george mason university B. Delworth Gardner Nathan Rosenberg Charles Wolf, Jr. brigham young university stanford university rand corporation 100 Swan Way, Oak land, California 94621-1428, U.S.A. Telephone: 510-632-1366 • Facsimile: 510-568-6040 • Email: [email protected] • www.independent.org T P J HE URSUIT OF USTICE LAW AND ECONOMICS OF LEGAL INSTITUTIONS Edited by Edward J. López Foreword by Robert D. Tollison Published in cooperation with The Independent Institute THE PURSUIT OF JUSTICE Copyright © The Independent Institute, 2010. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010978-0-230-10244-6 All rights reserved. Cover image: © Kelly Redinger/Design Pics/Corbis. Front cover design by Christopher Chambers. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-10245-3 ISBN 978-0-230-10949-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230109490 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: June 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents List of Illustrations vii Foreword ix Robert D. Tollison Acknowledgments xi 1. An Introduction to The Pursuit of Justice 1 Edward J. López 2. The Rise of Government Law Enforcement in England 19 Nicholas A. Curott and Edward P. Stringham 3. Electoral Pressures and the Legal System: Friends or Foes? 37 Russell S. Sobel, Matt E. Ryan, and Joshua C. Hall 4. Romancing Forensics: Legal Failure in Forensic Science Administration 51 Roger G. Koppl 5. Judicial Checks on Corruption 71 Adriana S. Cordis 6. Effects of Judicial Selection on Criminal Sentencing 103 Aleksandar Tomic and Jahn K. Hakes 7. Economic Development Takings as Government Failure 123 Ilya Somin 8. On the Impossibility of “Just Compensation” When Property Is Taken: An Ethical and Epistemic Inquiry 145 John Brätland 9. The Lawyer-Judge Hypothesis 169 Benjamin H. Barton 10. Class Action Rent Extraction: Theory and Evidence of Legal Extortion 193 Jeffrey Haymond vi Contents 11. Cy Pres and Its Predators 217 Charles N. W. Keckler 12. Licensing Lawyers: Failure in the Provision of Legal Services 235 Adam B. Summers Bibliography 255 Notes on Contributors 283 Index 289 Illustrations Tables 3.1 Average Judicial Quality Ranking by Selection Process, 2004 40 3.2 Determinants of State Legal Liability Rankings 41 3.3 Comparison of Partisan vs. Nonpartisan Election States 42 3.4 Election Years vs. Nonelection Years 44 3.5 The Monthly Timing of Wrongful Convictions 46 5.1 States with Most and Least Convictions Per State Government Employee 76 5.2 Summary Statistics 77 5.3 The Effect of Judicial Independence and Constitutional Rigidity on Corruption in the United States 78 5.4 Correlation Coefficients between Corruption Indicators 83 5.5 Countries with Highest and Lowest Corruption Scores According to Corruption TI Index 84 5.6 Correlation Coefficients between Judicial Independence Indicators 84 5.7 Countries with Most and Least Independent Judiciaries According to Judicial Independence (I) Index 85 5.8 Descriptive Statistics of Cross-Country Data 87 5.9 The Effect of Judicial Independence (I) on Corruption TI 90 5.10 The Effect of Judicial Independence (II) on Corruption TI 93 5.11 The Effect of Judicial Independence (III) on Corruption TI 95 5.12 The Effect of Constitutional Review on Corruption TI 96 5.13 The Effect of Judicial Independence on Corruption TI: Pooled OLS, WLS, and Panel Estimations 98 6.1 Judicial Selection Mechanisms 107 6.2 Summary Statistics 114 6.3 Rates of Incarceration and Mean Sentence Lengths, by Conviction Charge and Judicial Selection System 115 6.4 Predicted Effects of Variables Upon Incarceration and (Conditional) Sentence Length 116 6.5 Incarceration and Sentence Length Models (Judges Grouped by Initial Selection Method) 118 viii Illustrations 6.6 Incarceration and Sentence-length Models, Re-Classifying as Elected Judges Those Appointed Judges Who Are Subject to Retention Elections 119 10.1 2007 State Spending on Tobacco Prevention 212 FIGURE 4.1 Locus of Breakeven Values 68 Foreword Robert D. Tollison P ublic choice and law and economics were distinct revolutions in economic thought, expanding the economic method of homo economicus into areas traditionally reserved for other disciplines. Both developments took place at approximately the same time (the 1950s and 1960s), and many of the same scholars participated in laying the theoretical foundations in both public choice and law and economics. A partial listing in no particular order would include Ronald Coase, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Gary Becker, Richard Posner, George Stigler, Henry Manne, Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, and still others. Over time, as these new subdisciplines found acceptance as “normal science,” the two areas of research evolved into courses and research programs that were and largely remain independent of one another. Recognizing that I am painting with a broad brush, the law and economics subdiscipline grew into a largely normative enterprise of evaluat- ing legal rules and institutions relative to some normative standard such as economic efficiency. One branch of public choice produced what sometimes seemed like never-ending and highly complicated analyses of voting rules and other political institutions. But a second tradition of positive public choice also emerged, in which economic methods were applied to politics and political decision-making in order to understand how government worked as opposed to how it “ought” to work. In the positive economic approach, government is not decried as being “inefficient” in some sense, but rather is seen as a purposeful enterprise organized, staffed, and run by the children of Adam Smith and Bernard Mandeville. The maintained hypothesis here is that law and economics shied away from the positive economic analysis of law and its attendant actors and insti- tutions. This is not to say that there have been zero contributions in this vein. The point is simply that there is more than ample room for develop- ment here, which brings me to this volume. Edward Lo´pez and his co-authors have produced an original book that contributes significantly to the positive economics of law and economics. This to me is a valuable and useful undertaking, and it will hopefully stimu- late additional work along these lines. Rather than, for example, looking at law and economics as a critique of legal decision making vis-à-vis an eco- nomic efficiency standard, these authors seek to model and explain/predict

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