We discuss a central question in the study of courts: What do judges want? We suggest three different domains that might serve as the basic preferences of a judge: case dispositions and rules, caseloads and case mixes, and social consequences. We emphasize preferences over dispositions on the...

We review the basic building blocks of the case-space approach to modeling courts, particularly cases, dispositions, and rules. We provide numerous examples of case spaces. We clarify the policy-making actions of courts, distinguishing statutory interpretation, review of agency rule-making on...

We explore the properties of voting rules and procedures employed by appellate courts in the US. Our model features: (1) a two-stage decision-making process (first over case disposition, then over majority opinion content), (2) dispositional consistency (the new rule must yield the Court's...

This essay reviews Epstein, Landes, and Posner's The Behavior of Federal Judges: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Rational Choice. Their book systematically asks how the role of ideology varies across the tiers of the federal judicial hierarchy. A major finding is that the impact of ideology...

This article generalizes the analysis of settlement under joint and several liability from lawsuits involving one plaintiff and two defendants to those involving namp;#8805;2 defendants. We demonstrate that, depending upon the correlation of outcomes among the defendants, but regardless of the...

Recent research in experimental law and economics shows that the imposition of a fine, intended to deter some harmful behavior, may crowd out moral motivation: the behavior occurs more frequently even though a payment is charged to discourage it. In A Fine is a Price, Gneezy and Rustichini...