Empirical Legal Studies

Bankruptcy & Race

Although a few days old, anytime ELS scholarship lands in the NYT it likely warrants a post. The front page (above-the-fold) of last Saturday's NYT included an extensive summary of a forthcoming JELS article by Jean Braucher (Ariz.), Dov Cohen (Ill.--psych.), &  Bob Lawless (Ill.), Race, Attorney Influence, and Bankruptcy Chapter Choice. As the news story (and article) make clear, two related studies find that "Even after controlling for financial, demographic, and legal factors that might favor a chapter 13 filing, African Americans are much more likely to file chapter 13, as compared to debtors of other races."

Statistics via iTunes

Although I cannot personally vouch for this particular course (Harvard, Stats 110--Probability, Fall 2011, with Prof. Joe Blitzstein), others can (and do so gushingly). What I can heartily endorse, however, is disseminating the entire course via iTunes (and free of charge).

Disparate Impact & "Statistical Malpractice" Claims

A Wall Street Journal commentary piece yesterday (regrettably, full online text is available only to WSJ subscribers) provided one (albeit sharply critical) perspective on how the US DoJ applies the disparate impact doctrine in the context of loan fee negotiations. (An alternative perspective from the New York Times, describing the Countrywide settlement, is here.) As the WSJ's Holman Jenkins describes, Countrywide "behaved much like a car dealer, setting "sticker prices" above the market price." Thus, customers were incented to bargain down from the sticker price while Countrywide's loan officers and brokers were incented to resist during negotiations.

Now let's turn to the data. According to Jenkins, DoJ found that "out of 4.4 million loans approved between 2004 and 2008, 525,000 went to African-American or Hispanic borrowers, of which some 210,000 paid higher fees or rates than the average paid by similarly situated "non-Hispanic White Borrowers"." Jenkins's claim of "statistical malpractice" flows from the obvious point that a "large numbers of white borrowers also paid higher than the average of all whites. It also goes without saying large numbers of minorities didn't pay higher rates, though Justice isn't interested in the average of what minorities paid, only that some minorities paid higher than the average of whites."

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (for ELS)

Andrew Gelman (Stats & Poli Sci; Columbia), who delivered a wonderful paper at the recent CELS conference, followed up with a recent post on graphical communication for empirical legal scholarship. As you will see, Andrew's post pivots on a thoughtful comment from Dan Kahan (Yale).

Double-Blind Research Design & Expensive Violins

While not particularly legal per se, results from a test of professional violinists' ability to identify music from a Stradivarius as opposed to other and newer, expensive violins, originally published in The Strad (Feb. 2007), were featured in a recent NPR segment (here). (The NPR segment includes two audio clips for anyone interested and desiring to test their own musical acumen.)

Notably (and certainly within the ELS Blog sweet-spot), the researchers employed a double-blind test. "Researchers gathered professional violinists in a hotel room in Indianapolis. They had six violins — two Strads, a Guarneri and three modern instruments. Everybody wore dark goggles so they couldn't see which violin was which." Ironically, "the only statistically obvious trend in the choices was that one of the Stradivarius violins was the least favorite, and one of the modern instruments was slightly favored."