Our study sheds light on how gender shapes judicial decision-making under uncertainty, with implications for child welfare, fairness, and justice in developing countries.
We hope it sparks discussion at the intersection of law, gender, and development economics.
/
🔹 Result 3: We find no conclusive statistical evidence for other mechanisms—such as bias against female plaintiffs, workplace masculinization, or differences in legal objectives.
4/
🔹 Result 2: Among defendants in the informal sector (over 70% of cases), the gap seems to come from female judges’ greater skepticism toward claims they perceive as inflated, shaping their beliefs about defendants’ earnings.
3/
We study how judges in Lima, Peru assign child support awards to mothers.
Our findings show clear differences in how male and female judges evaluate cases.
🔹 Result 1: Female judges award child support amounts that are on average 0.18 standard deviations lower than those awarded by male judges.
2/
Thrilled to share that, after years of work, Roberto Asmat and I have published our paper in the Journal of Development Economics:
“Gender Differences in Judicial Decisions under Incomplete Information: Evidence from Child Support Cases” 👩⚖️👨⚖️
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
1/
JMP2: RCT. A non-monetary incentives scheme, "Destaca Docente", improves teaching quality in Peruvian primary schools through boosting teachers' perceptions of relative autonomy.
More info:
JMP1: tinyurl.com/55etefmv
JMP2: tinyurl.com/3pukyfcv
Thanks!
On the #EconJobMarket with two JMPs!
JMP1: Natural Experiment. Female judges award less child support. In cases where income is unknown, this is explained by them being more sensitive to overstatements of mothers' claims.
(1)