Employment Contracts and Judicial Behavior

This paper reports an empirical investigation of judicial employment contracts and judge performance using a new panel dataset of state supreme court judges. Using judge fixed effects in a diffs-in-diffs framework, we estimate the effects of contract changes on the performance of sitting judges. First, we measure judge performance changes in response to discrete changes in judge salary. Second, we compare judge performance before and after discrete changes in tenure status. Third, we measure judge performance across the term of office.