DP8266 Why Stare Decisis?
Author(s): | Luca Anderlini, Leonardo Felli, Alessandro Riboni |
Publication Date: | February 2011 |
Keyword(s): | Case Law, Precedents, Stare Decisis, Time-Inconsistency |
JEL(s): | C79, D74, D89, K40, L14 |
Programme Areas: | Industrial Organization |
Link to this Page: | cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=8266 |
All Courts rule ex-post, after most economic decisions are sunk. This might generate a time-inconsistency problem. From an ex-ante perspective, Courts will have the (ex-post) temptation to be excessively lenient. This observation is at the root of the principle of stare decisis. Stare decisis forces Courts to weigh the benefits of leniency towards the current parties against the beneficial effects that tougher decisions have on future ones. We study these dynamics and find that stare decisis guarantees that precedents evolve towards ex-ante efficient decisions, thus alleviating the Courts? time-inconsistency problem. However, the dynamics do not converge to full efficiency