Working Paper: NBER ID: w26726
Authors: Marco Battaglini; Jorgen M. Harris; Eleonora Patacchini
Abstract: We examine the effect of hearing cases alongside female judicial colleagues on the probability that a federal judge hires a female law clerk. Federal judges are assigned to cases and to judicial panels at random and have few limitations on their choices of law clerks: these two features make the federal court system a unique environment in which to study the effect of professional interactions and beliefs in organizations. We constructed a unique dataset by aggregating federal case records from 2007-2017 to collect information on federal judicial panels, and by merging this data with judicial hiring information from the Judicial Yellow Book, a directory of federal judges and clerks. We find that a one standard deviation increase in the fraction of co-panelists who are female increases a judge’s likelihood of hiring a female clerk by 4 percentage points. This finding suggests that increases in the diversity of the upper rungs of a profession can shift attitudes in a way that creates opportunities at the entry level of a profession.
Keywords: gender diversity; judicial hiring; professional interactions; law clerks
JEL Codes: J16; J71; J82
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Exposure to female judicial colleagues (J16) | Likelihood of hiring female law clerks (J79) |
| Fraction of copanelists who are female (J16) | Likelihood of hiring female law clerks (J79) |
| Exposure to female judicial colleagues (J16) | Judges' attitudes (K40) |
| Judges' attitudes (K40) | Likelihood of hiring female law clerks (J79) |