Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the US Supreme Court Export

@article{citeulike:1417354, abstract = {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. 10.1093/jleo/ewm023}, author = {Lax, Jeffrey R. and Cameron, Charles M.}, citeulike-article-id = {1417354}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ewm023}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://jleo.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/2/276}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1093/jleo/ewm023}, journal = {J Law Econ Organ}, keywords = {judicial}, month = {June}, number = {2}, pages = {276--302}, posted-at = {2007-07-09 13:35:46}, priority = {2}, title = {Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the US Supreme Court}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ewm023}, volume = {23}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1417354 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1417354 N2 - 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. 10.1093/jleo/ewm023 IS - 2 JF - J Law Econ Organ EP - 302 TI - Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the US Supreme Court VL - 23 SP - 276 KW - judicial AU - Lax, Jeffrey AU - Cameron, Charles PY - 2007/06/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ewm023 ER -