Abstract
We document judicial leniency on defendant birthdays across 4.8 million decisions. Our results are consistent with reference-dependent social preferences. First, French sentences are 1% fewer and around 5% shorter. Second, U.S. federal judges also round down sentences except when rounding up makes available sentencing reductions for good behavior. No leniency appears on the days before or after a defendant's birthday.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 324-344 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization |
| Volume | 211 |
| Early online date | 18 May 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Work on this project was conducted while Chen received financial support from the European Research Council (Grant No. 614708), Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 100018-152678 and 106014-150820), and Agence Nationale de la Recherche. Support through ANR Labex is gratefully acknowledged. Daniel Chen acknowledges IAST funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) under the Investments for the Future (Investissements d'Avenir) program, grant ANR-17-EUR-0010. This research has also benefited from financial support of the research foundation TSE-Partnership.
Funding Information:
Work on this project was conducted while Chen received financial support from the European Research Council (Grant No. 614708), Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 100018-152678 and 106014-150820), and Agence Nationale de la Recherche. Support through ANR Labex is gratefully acknowledged. Daniel Chen acknowledges IAST funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) under the Investments for the Future (Investissements d'Avenir) program, grant ANR-17-EUR-0010. This research has also benefited from financial support of the research foundation TSE-Partnership.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
Keywords
- Judicial decision making
- Cognitive bias