1st Edition
Empirical Legal Analysis Assessing the performance of legal institutions
This innovative volume explores empirical legal issues around the world. While legal studies have traditionally been worked on and of letters and with a normative bent, in recent years quantitative methods have gained traction by offering a brand new perspective of understanding law. That is, legal scholars have started to crunch numbers, not letters, to tease out the effects of law on the regulated industries, citizens, or judges in reality.
In this edited book, authors from leading institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia investigate legal issues in South Africa, Argentina, the U.S., Israel, Taiwan, and other countries. Using original data in a variety of statistical tools (from the most basic chi-square analysis to sophisticated two-stage least square regression models), contributors to this book look into the judicial behaviours in Taiwan and Israel, the determinants of constitutional judicial systems in 100 countries, and the effect of appellate court decisions on media competition. In addition, this book breaks new ground in informing important policy debates. Specifically, how long should we incarcerate criminals? Should the medical malpractice liability system be reformed? Do police reduce crime? Why is South Africa’s democratic transition viable?
With solid data as evidence, this volume sheds new light on these issues from a road more and more frequently taken—what is known as "empirical legal studies/analysis." This book should be useful to students, practitioners and professors of law, economics and public policy in many countries who seek to understand their legal system from a different, and arguably more scientific, perspective.
Introduction, Yun-chien Chang 1. Why Was the Democratic Transition in South Africa Viable, Robert P. Inman and Daniel L. Rubinfeld 2. Reality Check: How Malpractice Facts Changed Malpractice Liability Theory, Jennifer Arlen 3. How do We Decide How Long to Incarcerate, David S. Abrams 4. Does Appellate Precedent Matter? Stock Price Responses to Appellate Court Decisions of FCC Actions, Daniel L. Chen, Susan Yeh and Alberto G. Araiza 5. Do Police Reduce Crime? A Reexamination of a Natural Experiment, John J. Donohue, Daniel E. Ho and Patrick Leahy 6. To Tear Down or Not to Tear Down? An Empirical Study of Boundary Encroachment Cases in Taiwan, Yun-chien Chang 7. Judicial Activism and Government Practices in Litigation in the Israeli High Court of Justice 1970-2000, Yoav Dotan 8. Case Selection and Dissent in Courts of Last Resort: An Empirical Study of the Israel Supreme Court, Theodore Eisenberg, Talia Fisher and Issi Rosen-Zvi 9. Determinants of Constitutionally Safeguarded Judicial Review: Insights Based on a New Indicator, Jerg Gutmann, Bernd Hayo and Stefan Voigt
Biography
Prof. Yun-chien Chang is an Associate Research Professor at Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, and serves as the Deputy Director of its Empirical Legal Studies Center. He was a visiting professor at Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Fall 2011. His academic interests focus on economic, empirical, and comparative analysis of property law and land use law. Prof. Chang’s articles have appeared in Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of Legal Analysis, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, The University of Chicago Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, among others. His book, Private Property and Takings Compensation: Theoretical Framework and Empirical Analysis, was published by Edward Elgar in 2013. Prof. Chang received his J.S.D. and LL.M. degree from New York University School of Law.
