With passage of a 1987 statute, Montana became the only state to adopt a "good cause" standard for discharge of employees with contracts of unspecified duration. The new statute was a legislative response to a series of Montana Supreme Court cases, starting in 1980, that gave otherwise at-will...

The innocence problem, which occurs when an innocent person is falsely accused or convicted of a crime, is impossible to study with empirical data, because “true” innocence and guilt are unobservable in the “real world.” In this study, we replicate the criminal justice system in the...

The definition of reasonable doubt presented in jury instructions varies considerably across states. We use a controlled experiment to analyze the relationship between the definition of reasonable doubt and juror decisions. In our novel (preregistered) experiment, we vary the definition of...

Existing research has found that economic growth is higher in countries where (1) certain religious beliefs are stronger and (2) the rule of law is stronger and corruption is lower. This paper examines whether religion is correlated with the rule of law and the level of corruption, thereby...

The definition of reasonable doubt presented in jury instructions varies considerably across states. We use a controlled experiment to analyze the relationship between the definition of reasonable doubt and juror decisions. In our novel (preregistered) experiment, we vary the definition of...

How does gender influence the tolerance of type 1 and type 2 error in juror decisions? This paper analyzes how men and women resolve a trade-off between reducing type 1 and type 2 error. We use a novel experimental design where juror subjects can use points to reduce the prevalence of type 1 and...