@article{Sophistication:2974, recid = {2974}, author = {Cao, Siying}, title = {Quantifying Economic Reasoning in Court: Judge Economics Sophistication and Pro-business Orientation}, publisher = {University of Chicago}, school = {Ph.D.}, address = {2021-06}, pages = {109}, abstract = {By applying computational linguistics tools to the analysis of US federal district courts’ decisions from 1932 to 2016, I quantify the rise of economic reasoning in court cases that range from securities regulation to antitrust law. I then relate judges’ level of economic reasoning to their training. I find that significant judge heterogeneity in economics sophistication can be explained by attendance at law schools that have a large presence of the law and economics faculty. Finally, for all regulatory cases from 1970 to 2016, I hand code whether the judge ruled in favor of the business or the government. I find that judge economics sophistication is positively correlated with a higher frequency of pro-business decisions even after controlling for political ideology and a rich set of other judge covariates.}, url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/2974}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.2974}, }