The Appeals Process and Adjudicator Incentives

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The appeals process -- whereby litigants can have decisions of adjudicators reviewed by a higher authority -- is a general feature of formal legal systems (and of many private decisionmaking procedures). It leads to the making of better decisions, because it constitutes a threat to adjudicators whose decisions would deviate too much from socially desirable ones. Further, it yields this benefit without absorbing resources to the extent that adjudicators can anticipate when appeals would occur and would thus make decisions to forestall the actual occurrence of appeals.

Published: Shavell, Steven. "The Appeals Process and Adjudicator Incentives." Journal of Legal Studies 35, 1 (January 2006): 1-29.

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