Communicating Judicial Retirement

Justices can strategically shape perceptions of their likely retirements, and so influence the President and Senate in choosing an ideologically compatible replacement. Relatively new justices can vote insincerely to affect how their ideologies are perceived, but their signaling options are shaped by older justices’ expected retirement probabilities. We show that “strong messages” of retirement are likely when new justices vote insincerely and the new and retiring justices’ ideologies are aligned. “Weak messages” are more likely when new justices vote sincerely or, if they do vote insincerely, the old and new justice ideologies are unaligned.

Keywords: Retirement, Supreme Court, Costless Signaling

JEL Classification: K10, K30, K40

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Bustos, Álvaro E. and Jacobi, Tonja, Communicating Judicial Retirement (June 11, 2014). Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 14-32, Bustos, A., & Jacobi, T. (2015). Communicating judicial retirement. International Review of Law and Economics, 43, 107-118., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2448994 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2448994