Musical Chairs: How Frequent Judge Transfers Shape Judicial Decision-Making in India (joint work with Saloni Bhogale and Amit Jadhav)
In many parts of the world, judges are transferred frequently. We argue that transfers undermine court productivity, and cause judges to prioritize easier and recently filed cases. We test these propositions using big data from the courts of first instance in India, in which there are more than 40 million cases pending, and a research design that leverages transfers due to judge retirements at precisely age 60. The data suggest that judge transfers are frequent, occurring once every 10 months. Transfers reduce court productivity, both because transfers create court vacancies, and since portions of cases that experience judge transfers are reheard. Judges who experience transfers focus on easier and newer cases. Transfers are a major, unappreciated cause of judicial delays, particularly of difficult cases. We demonstrate how seemingly mundane judge staffing decisions shape judicial decision-making.
About the Speaker:
Rikhil Bhavnani is a Professor and the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Chair in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focuses on the political economy of development and migration, as well as inequalities in political representation, primarily in South Asia.
He is the co-author, with Bethany Lacina, of a book on the backlash against within-country migration across the developing world, published by Cambridge University Press. His research has appeared in leading journals such as the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the International Growth Centre.
He currently serves as President of the Midwest Political Science Association and is a Faculty Affiliate at the La Follette School of Public Affairs, the Data Science Institute, the Elections Research Center, and the Center for South Asia, which he previously directed. He has also served as Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies in his department.
Before joining UW–Madison, he was a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. He has also worked at the Center for Global Development and the International Monetary Fund. He holds a PhD in Political Science and an MA in Economics from Stanford University, and a BA in Political Science and Economics from Yale University. His pronouns are he/him.