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  5. Comment on "Temperature and Decisions: Evidence from 207,000 Court Cases"

American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics

ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)

Comment on "Temperature and Decisions: Evidence from 207,000 Court Cases"

  • Holger Spamann
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
vol. 14, no. 4, October 2022
(pp. 519–28)
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Abstract

Heyes and Saberian (2019) estimate from 2000–2004 data that outdoor temperature reduces US immigration judges' propensity to grant asylum. This estimate is the result of coding and data errors and of sample selection. Correcting the errors reduces the point estimate by two-thirds, with a wide 95 percent confidence interval straddling zero. Enlarging the sample to 1990–2019 flips the point estimate's sign and rules out the effect size reported by Heyes and Saberian with very high confidence. An analysis of all criminal sentencing decisions by US federal district judges from 1992 to 2003 yields no evidence of temperature or other weather effects either.

Citation

Spamann, Holger. 2022. "Comment on "Temperature and Decisions: Evidence from 207,000 Court Cases"." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14 (4): 519–28. DOI: 10.1257/app.20200118

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • K37 Immigration Law
  • K41 Litigation Process
  • Q54 Climate; Natural Disasters and Their Management; Global Warming
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