W8 - Empirical Legal Studies

Question 1

Give the empirical example of the Ban the Box study. What is it, what was the aim, how did it turn out and why

Answer 1

Ban the box is a policy that removes the criminal record checkbox on job applications to increase employment of former criminals, especially black men as a criminal record is a major barrier. Since there was no criminal record info anymore, employers resorted to sorting applicants by their names, and black names got even less call-backs after the policy was implemented as they acted rationally due to asymmetric information using heuristics.

Good idea in theory but had unintended harmful consequences.

Question 2

How can we make a normative judgement on whether a legal reform is good? How do you measure the good on society?

Answer 2

Economics approach - look at the outcome, was it efficient/fair etc. Does it fulfil the Pareto criterion or the rawlsian criteria.

Use social welfare evaluation functions where you sum up individual utilities, or attach weights to marginalised groups.