Empirical Legal Studies

Calculating Damages in Successful Discrimination Lawsuits

An interesting paper seeks to improve accuracy by approaching discrimination detection and discrimination remedies with distinct empirical strategies. In Improved Statistical Methods for the Calculation of Damages in Discrimination Lawsuits, Scott Susin (HUD) and Ioan Voicu (OCC) note that: "While regression techniques for detecting discrimination have generated a vast literature, similar techniques for remedying discrimination have been comparatively neglected." The authors propose Bayes techniques for compensation calculations. The paper's abstract follows.

"In this paper, we develop a new method that uses empirical Bayes techniques to more accurately incorporate the individual-specific information. While some non-injurious factors will always be unobserved, it is possible to estimate the percentage of the variance due to these factors. Given this estimate, our method calculates individual-specific damages by using empirical Bayes methods that combine a general estimate, based on a regression coefficient, with individual-specific estimates based on regression residuals. It thus combines many of the best features of previous approaches and results in considerably more accurate payments than existing statistical procedures."

Chevron, Step Two, and Circuit Courts

Recent (and on-going) debates about Chevron deference, as well as the related "two-step" Chevron test, while heated, are noted for a general inattention to data. A recent paper by Kent Barnett (Georgia) and Christopher Walker (Ohio State), Chevron Step Two's Domain, however, makes a welcome empirical contribution to the Chevron debates. Drawing on a data set that includes 2,272 judicial decisions from federal circuit courts over an 11-year period (2003-2013), the paper, while limited to descriptive analyses, reports on the circuit courts' operationalization of Chevron's second step. The abstract follows.

"An increasing number of judges, policymakers, and scholars have advocated eliminating or narrowing Chevron deference—a two-step inquiry under which courts defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes the agencies administer. Much of the debate centers on either Chevron’s domain (i.e., when Chevron should apply at all) or how courts ascertain statutory ambiguity at Chevron’s first step. Largely lost in this debate on constraining agency discretion is the role of Chevron’s second step: whether the agency’s resolution of a statutory ambiguity is reasonable. Drawing on the most comprehensive study of Chevron in the circuit courts, this Essay explores how circuit courts have applied Chevron step two to invalidate agency statutory interpretations. In doing so, it identifies three separate approaches that merit further theoretical and doctrinal development: (1) a more-searching textualist or structuralist inquiry into the statutory ambiguity in light of the whole statute; (2) an enhanced purposivist or contextualist inquiry; and (3) an inquiry into an agency’s reasoned-decisionmaking similar to arbitrary-and-capricious review under the Administrative Procedure Act."

Stata's Instructional Video Library

What began as a "good idea" and complemented other resources has quickly evolved into an invaluable stand-alone resource for novice and experienced Stata users alike. The current collection in Stata's instructional video library (hosted on YouTube) is now both wide and deep; I recommend this resource to all.

Plotting Marginal Effects From Logit

As the "logit" command is quite common in ELS and as many political scientists have embraced marginal effects, I thought this recent and helpful exchange (here), featuring concrete coding suggestions, might interest some readers.