法官强制退休改善了美国州最高法院的绩效
Mandatory Retirement for Judges Improved the Performance of US State Supreme Courts
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy · 2024 · [{"name": "Elliott Ash", "affiliation": ["ETH Zurich"]}, {"name": "W. Bentley MacLeod", "affiliation": ["Princeton University"]}]
中文摘要
本文以美国州最高法院的改革作为自然实验，就强制退休如何影响法官绩效提供证据。我们发现，引入强制退休改善了法院绩效，无论是以产出（判决意见数量）还是以法律影响力（判决意见被引用次数）衡量，均是如此。尽管年长法官的判决意见被引用次数少于年轻法官，但强制退休的影响大于仅由年龄分布变化所能预期的影响。我们发现了一些证据，表明这一额外影响源于选择性减员，且年长法官的存在会降低年轻法官的绩效。（JEL H76、J14、J24、J26、K40）
Abstract
This paper provides evidence on how mandatory retirement influences judge performance using reforms in US state supreme courts as a natural experiment. We find that introducing mandatory retirement improves court performance as measured by output (number of opinions) and legal influence (number of citations to opinions). While older judges are cited less than younger judges, the effect of mandatory retirement is larger than what is expected from a change in the age distribution. We find some evidence that the additional effect is due to selective attrition and that the presence of older judges reduces the performance of younger judges. (JEL H76, J14, J24, J26, K40)