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Political Economy Research Seminar & Political Economy Research Seminar

Gender Attitudes in the Judiciary: Evidence from U.S. Circuit Courts

Arianna Ornaghi (Hertie School)

Tuesday 16 November 2021 14:00 - 15:30

Many of our seminars and public events this year will continue as in person or as hybrid (online and in person) events. Please check our website listings and Twitter feed @STICERD_LSE for updates.

Unless otherwise specified, in-person seminars are open to the public. Please ensure you have informed the event contact as early as possible.

Those unable to join the seminars in-person are welcome to participate via zoom if the event is hybrid.


About this event

Do gender attitudes influence interactions with female judges in U.S. Circuit Courts? In this paper, we propose a novel judge-specific measure of gender attitudes based on use of gender-stereotyped language in the judge’s authored opinions. Exploiting quasi-random assignment of judges to cases and conditioning on judges’ characteristics, we validate the measure showing that slanted judges vote more conservatively in gender-related cases. Slant influences interactions with female colleagues: slanted judges are more likely to reverse lower-court decisions if the lower-court judge is a woman than a man, are less likely to assign opinions to female judges, and cite fewer female-authored opinions.

The Political Economy Research Seminar is jointly organised by the Departments of Economics, of Government, and of Management, with financial support from STICERD.

It brings together scholars across multiple departments at the LSE and from nearby universities. The series consists of talks by external and internal faculty presenting theoretical or empirical papers on a wide range of topics associated with political economy.

These seminars are held on Tuesdays in term time at 14.00-15.30, in room MAR 6.33, unless specified otherwise.

Seminar coordinators: Timothy Besley (Economics), Tak-Huen Chau (Government), Stephane Wolton (Government), Noam Yuchtman (Management)

Contact gov.comms@lse.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list or for further information.

The Political Economy Research Seminar is jointly organised by the Departments of Economics, of Government, and of Management, with financial support from STICERD.

It brings together scholars across multiple departments at the LSE and from nearby universities. The series consists of talks by external and internal faculty presenting theoretical or empirical papers on a wide range of topics associated with political economy.

These seminars are held on Tuesdays in term time at 14.00-15.30, in room MAR 6.33, unless specified otherwise.

Seminar coordinators: Timothy Besley (Economics), Tak-Huen Chau (Government), Stephane Wolton (Government), Noam Yuchtman (Management)

Contact gov.comms@lse.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list or for further information.