Working Paper: NBER ID: w22611
Authors: Ozkan Eren; Naci Mocan
Abstract: Employing the universe of juvenile court decisions in a U.S. state between 1996 and 2012, we analyze the effects of emotional shocks associated with unexpected outcomes of football games played by a prominent college team in the state. We investigate the behavior of judges, the conduct of whom should, by law, be free of personal biases and emotions. We find that unexpected losses increase disposition (sentence) lengths assigned by judges during the week following the game. Unexpected wins, or losses that were expected to be close contests ex-ante, have no impact. The effects of these emotional shocks are asymmetrically borne by black defendants. We present evidence that the results are not influenced by defendant or attorney behavior or by defendants’ economic background. Importantly, the results are driven by judges who have received their bachelor’s degrees from the university with which the football team is affiliated. Different falsification tests and a number of auxiliary analyses demonstrate the robustness of the findings. These results provide evidence for the impact of emotions in one domain on a behavior in a completely unrelated domain among a uniformly highly-educated group of individuals (judges), with decisions involving high stakes (sentence lengths). They also point to the existence of a subtle and previously-unnoticed capricious application of sentencing.
Keywords: judicial behavior; emotional shocks; sentencing; juvenile courts; race disparities
JEL Codes: D02; D03; J15; J71; K4; K41
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| unexpected losses by the LSU football team (Z29) | increase in the disposition sentence lengths assigned by judges (K40) |
| unexpected losses by the LSU football team (Z29) | emotional shocks experienced by judges (K40) |
| emotional shocks experienced by judges (K40) | increase in the disposition sentence lengths assigned by judges (K40) |
| unexpected losses by the LSU football team (Z29) | greater increase in sentence severity for black defendants (K40) |
| emotional shocks experienced by judges (LSU alumni) (Z22) | increase in the disposition sentence lengths assigned by judges (K40) |