The Value of Information in the Court. Get it Right, Keep it Tight

Abstract

We estimate an equilibrium model of decision-making in the US Supreme Court which takes into account both private information and ideological differences between justices. We present a measure of the value of information in the court: the probability that a justice votes differently than what she would have voted for in the absence of case-specific information. Our results suggest a sizable value of information: in roughly 44% of cases, justices' initial leanings are changed by their personal assessments of the case. Our results also confirm the increased politicization of the Supreme Court in the last quarter century. We perform counterfactual simulations to draw implications for institutional design.