Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics
Publication Date
2009
Publication Title
Law & Economics Working Papers
Abstract
Judge Sonia Sotomayor's assertion that female judges might be "better" than male judges has generated accusations of sexism and potential bias. An equally controversial claim is that male judges are better than female judges because the latter have benefited from affirmative action. These claims are susceptible to empirical analysis. Primarily using a dataset of all the state high court judges in 1998-2000, we estimate three measures of judicial output: opinion production, outside state citations, and co-partisan disagreements. We find that the male and female judges perform at about the same level. Roughly similar findings show up in data from the U.S. Court of Appeals and the federal district courts.
Number
483
Recommended Citation
Eric Posner, Stephen J. Choi, G. Mitu Gulati & Mirya Holman, "Judging Women" (John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics Working Paper No. 483, 2009).
Additional Information
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