https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4223-8124
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ABSTRACT
The macroeconomic theory of judging contends that when justices on courts of last resort consider cases involving their governments and economic issues their voting behaviour will be affected by the state of the economy. Using decisions from the High Court of Australia from 1970 through 2018, the findings suggest that both economic conditions, particularly inflation and the GDP growth rate, and the partisan identity of the Commonwealth government affect the Commonwealth’s probability of winning economic cases. The High Court’s behaviour is consistent with an institution that is part of the national policymaking system and is responsive to the state of the economy.
关于审判的宏观经济理论认为，当终审法庭的法官处理的案例涉及政府和经济问题时，他们的投票行为便会受到经济形势的影响。作者根据1970到2018年高等法院的判决指出，经济形势尤其是通货膨胀及GDP增长率、联邦政府的党派属性都会影响到联邦政府打赢经济官司的几率。高等法院的行为符合它作为国家政策制定体系一份子、要对经济形势作出响应的位置。
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the support of a Professional Development Award by the University of Tampa in aiding in the completion of this manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
William M. Myers is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Tampa and his research interests include judicial politics and political behaviour. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, European Political Science, Democratization, Comparative and Commonwealth Politics, and Perspectives on Federalism.
ORCID
William M. Myers http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4223-8124
Notes
1 This study stands out for its use of a novel measure of judicial ideology, as opposed to the proxy of appointing political party, based on an original content analysis of Australian newspaper editorials based off of the procedure developed by Segal and Cover (Citation1989).
2 A limited exception may apply to members of trade unions and their support of the Labor party given the link and importance between the two in the Australian labour movement (Leigh Citation2005).
3 The High Court of Australia decisions are publicly available at http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/.
4 The Commonwealth government includes its appendages, for example, ‘(Deputy) Federal Commissioner of Taxation,’ ‘Commissioner of Patents’ as well as regulatory bodies, for example, ‘Australian Securities and Investments Commission,’ ‘Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.’
5 Economic issues were identified in the ‘Catchwords’ section of each decision page. These include, for example, cases involving income tax, patents, estate duty, copyright, intellectual property, customs, bankruptcy, trade and commerce with other countries, conciliation and arbitration, workers’ compensation, posts and telegraphs, trade practices, acquisition of property, external affairs, industrial law, and corporations.
6 The source for economic data is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Measures of unemployment, inflation, and GDP growth rate are lagged yearly averages that coincide with the calendar term of the High Court. The business cycle is defined expanding (contracting) when GDP growth rate increased (decreased) compared to the year prior. Using yearly data provides a more conservative test of the hypothesised relationship.
7 Substantive interpretations of the results, such as average marginal effects and predicted probabilities, are based on the logistic regression model.