Modeling Supreme Court Strategic Decision Making: The Congressional Constraint

This paper addresses the contradictory results obtained by Segal (1997) and Spiller and Gely (1992) concerning the impact of institutional constraints on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision making. By adapting the Spiller and Gely maximum likelihood model to the Segal dataset, we find support for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Legislative studies quarterly 2003-05, Vol.28 (2), p.247-280
Main Authors: BERGARA, MARIO, RICHMAN, BARAK, SPILLER, PABLO T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Econometrics
Economic models
Judicial Decisions
Judicial rulings
Legislative Bodies
Liberalism
Median voter model
Modeling
Parametric models
United States of America
United States Supreme Court
United States Supreme Court opinions
Upper houses
Voting
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Summary:This paper addresses the contradictory results obtained by Segal (1997) and Spiller and Gely (1992) concerning the impact of institutional constraints on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision making. By adapting the Spiller and Gely maximum likelihood model to the Segal dataset, we find support for the hypothesis that the Court adjusts its decisions to presidential and congressional preferences. Data from 1947 to 1992 indicate that the average probability of the Court being constrained has been approximately one-third. Further, we show that the results obtained by Segal are the product of biases introduced by a misspecified econometric model. We also discuss how our estimation highlights the usefulness of Krehbiel's model of legislative decision making.
ISSN:0362-9805
1939-9162
DOI:10.3162/036298003X200881