IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/irlaec/v48y2016icp1-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining constitutional change: The case of judicial independence

Author

Listed:
  • Hayo, Bernd
  • Voigt, Stefan

Abstract

This paper studies the factors driving changes in constitutionally entrenched judicial independence (JI). Our indicator of constitutionally safeguarded JI is derived by applying a factor analysis utilizing 29 variables. Variations in JI are identified based on changes in the constitutions of as many as 100 countries that occurred between 1950 and 2005. Two theoretical perspectives are developed—the democratic competition view and the commitment view—and various hypotheses are suggested for explaining changes in JI. We find strong evidence that changes in political participation and competition as well as the characteristics of individual leaders—such as how they acquired or lost power—play an important role in explaining changes in constitutionally safeguarded JI. However, we find no clear-cut evidence supporting one theoretical perspective over the other.

Suggested Citation

  • Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2016. "Explaining constitutional change: The case of judicial independence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-13.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:48:y:2016:i:c:p:1-13
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2016.06.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014481881630031X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irle.2016.06.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2013. "Endogenous constitutions: Politics and politicians matter, economic outcomes don’t," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 47-61.
    2. Gohlmann, Silja & Vaubel, Roland, 2007. "The educational and occupational background of central bankers and its effect on inflation: An empirical analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 925-941, May.
    3. Davide Ticchi & Andrea Vindigni, 2010. "Endogenous Constitutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(543), pages 1-39, March.
    4. Timothy Besley, 2005. "Political Selection," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 43-60, Summer.
    5. Voigt, Stefan, 1997. "Positive Constitutional Economics: A Survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 90(1-4), pages 11-53, March.
    6. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2010. "Determinants of constitutional change: Why do countries change their form of government?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 283-305, September.
    7. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men? Evidence from Dictator Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 726-735, May.
    8. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, April.
    9. Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Endogenous Political Institutions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 565-611.
    10. Voigt, Stefan & Gutmann, Jerg & Feld, Lars P., 2015. "Economic growth and judicial independence, a dozen years on: Cross-country evidence using an updated Set of indicators," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 197-211.
    11. Timothy Besley & Rohini Pande & Vijayendra Rao, 2005. "Political Selection and the Quality of Government: Evidence from South India," STICERD - Political Economy and Public Policy Paper Series 08, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    12. James A. Robinson & Ragnar Torvik, 2016. "Endogenous Presidentialism," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 907-942.
    13. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, 2014. "Mapping Constitutionally Safeguarded Judicial Independence—A Global Survey," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(1), pages 159-195, March.
    14. Dreher, Axel & Lamla, Michael J. & Lein, Sarah M. & Somogyi, Frank, 2009. "The impact of political leaders' profession and education on reforms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 169-193, March.
    15. Timothy Besley & Rohini Pande & Vijayendra Rao, 2005. "Political Selection and the Quality of Government: Evidence from South India," STICERD - Political Economy and Public Policy Paper Series 08, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    16. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2007. "Explaining de facto judicial independence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 269-290, September.
    17. Ramseyer, J Mark, 1994. "The Puzzling (In)dependence of Courts: A Comparative Approach," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(2), pages 721-747, June.
    18. Acemoglu,Daron & Robinson,James A., 2009. "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671422, October.
    19. Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2005. "Do Leaders Matter? National Leadership and Growth Since World War II," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 835-864.
    20. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    21. F. Andrew Hanssen, 2004. "Is There a Politically Optimal Level of Judicial Independence?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 712-729, June.
    22. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2012. "Leaders’ Impact on Public Spending Priorities: The Case of the German Laender," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(4), pages 480-511, November.
    23. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    24. Landes, William M & Posner, Richard A, 1975. "The Independent Judiciary in an Interest-Group Perspective," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 875-901, December.
    25. Timothy Besley & Jose G. Montalvo & Marta Reynal‐Querol, 2011. "Do Educated Leaders Matter?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(554), pages 205-205, August.
    26. Stefan Voigt, 1999. "Explaining Constitutional Change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1847.
    27. Feld, Lars P. & Voigt, Stefan, 2003. "Economic growth and judicial independence: cross-country evidence using a new set of indicators," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 497-527, September.
    28. Tom Ginsburg & Mila Versteeg, 2014. "Why Do Countries Adopt Constitutional Review?," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(3), pages 587-622.
    29. Matthew C. Stephenson, 2003. "“When the Devil Turns … ”: The Political Foundations of Independent Judicial Review," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 59-89, January.
    30. Dollar, David & Fisman, Raymond & Gatti, Roberta, 2001. "Are women really the "fairer" sex? Corruption and women in government," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 423-429, December.
    31. Roger D. Congleton & Birgitta Swedenborg (ed.), 2006. "Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy: Analysis and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262033496, April.
    32. Ebonya Washington, 2006. "Female Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers' Voting on Women's Issues," NBER Working Papers 11924, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    34. Tatu Vanhanen, 2000. "A New Dataset for Measuring Democracy, 1810-1998," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 37(2), pages 251-265, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Niclas Berggren & Jerg Gutmann, 2020. "Securing personal freedom through institutions: the role of electoral democracy and judicial independence," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 165-186, April.
    2. Nuno Garoupa & Rok Spruk, 2024. "Populist Constitutional Backsliding and Judicial Independence: Evidence from Turkiye," Papers 2410.02439, arXiv.org.
    3. Gutmann, Jerg & Metelska-Szaniawska, Katarzyna & Voigt, Stefan, 2024. "Leader characteristics and constitutional compliance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Voigt, Stefan & Gutmann, Jerg & Feld, Lars P., 2015. "Economic growth and judicial independence, a dozen years on: Cross-country evidence using an updated Set of indicators," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 197-211.
    5. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2018. "The Puzzling Long-Term Relationship Between De Jure and De Facto Judicial Independence," ILE Working Paper Series 18, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    6. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2023. "Judicial independence: Why does de facto diverge from de jure?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Jan Fałkowski & Jacek Lewkowicz, 2022. "In practice or just on paper? Some insights on using alphabetical rule to assign judges to cases," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 405-430, December.
    8. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2019. "The long-term relationship between de jure and de facto judicial independence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1-1.
    9. Katarína Šipulová & Samuel Spáč & David Kosař & Tereza Papoušková & Viktor Derka, 2023. "Judicial Self‐Governance Index: Towards better understanding of the role of judges in governing the judiciary," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(1), pages 22-42, January.
    10. Jerg Gutmann & Stefan Voigt, 2015. "The rule of law and constitutionalism in Muslim countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 351-380, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Positive constitutional economics II—a survey of recent developments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 205-256, January.
    2. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2013. "Endogenous constitutions: Politics and politicians matter, economic outcomes don’t," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 47-61.
    3. Lorenz Blume & Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, 2015. "Correlates and Determinants of Direct Democracy," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201501, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    4. Jan Fałkowski & Katarzyna Metelska-Szaniawska, 2015. "Przyczyny ustanawiania i stabilność konstytucji państwa - perspektywa ekonomiczna," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 79-105.
    5. Gavoille, Nicolas, 2018. "Who are the ‘ghost’ MPs? Evidence from the French parliament," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 134-148.
    6. Voigt, Stefan, 2011. "Empirical constitutional economics: Onward and upward?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 319-330.
    7. Gavoille, Nicolas & Verschelde, Marijn, 2017. "Electoral competition and political selection: An analysis of the activity of French deputies, 1958–2012," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 180-195.
    8. Florian Neumeier, 2018. "Do Businessmen Make Good Governors?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2116-2136, October.
    9. Dreher, Axel & Jensen, Nathan M., 2013. "Country or leader? Political change and UN General Assembly voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 183-196.
    10. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2023. "Judicial independence: Why does de facto diverge from de jure?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    11. Christoph Moser & Axel Dreher, 2010. "Do Markets Care about Central Bank Governor Changes? Evidence from Emerging Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(8), pages 1589-1612, December.
    12. Gutmann, Jerg & Metelska-Szaniawska, Katarzyna & Voigt, Stefan, 2024. "Leader characteristics and constitutional compliance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Lahoti, Rahul & Sahoo, Soham, 2020. "Are educated leaders good for education? Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 42-62.
    14. Fuchs, Andreas & Richert, Katharina, 2015. "Do Development Minister Characteristics Affect Aid Giving?," Working Papers 0604, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    15. Hayo, Bernd & Neumeier, Florian, 2014. "Political leaders' socioeconomic background and fiscal performance in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 184-205.
    16. Fuchs, Andreas & Richert, Katharina, 2018. "Development Minister Characteristics and Aid Giving," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 53, pages 186-204.
    17. Dreher, Axel & Jensen, Nathan M., 2013. "Country or leader? Political change and UN General Assembly voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 183-196.
    18. Jochimsen, Beate & Thomasius, Sebastian, 2014. "The perfect finance minister: Whom to appoint as finance minister to balance the budget," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 390-408.
    19. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2016. "Political Leaders' Socioeconomic Background and Public Budget Deficits: Evidence from OECD Countries," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 55-78, March.
    20. Constantina P. Tridimas & George Tridimas, 2020. "Is the UK Supreme Court rogue to un-prorogue Parliament?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 205-225, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Judicial independence; Constitutional change; Endogenous constitutions; Relevance of leaders;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • K10 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - General (Constitutional Law)
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:48:y:2016:i:c:p:1-13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.elsevier.com/locate/irle .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.