Episode 100: Viola Salvestrini on the Gender Diversity and Decision-Making in Judicial Teams

Viola Salvestrini is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Bocconi University

Abstract:

We show that gender composition affects both the nature and quality of team decisions, assembling a novel dataset on collegial rulings from first- and second-instance criminal courts in Italy.  Leveraging the quasi-random allocation of both judges and cases to panels, we find that all-female teams convict more often and issue the most appeal-proof rulings (i.e., unappealed or upheld on appeal). In contrast, all-male teams convict less frequently and have the lowest rate of appeal-proof convictions, while mixed-gender teams resemble all-male teams in conviction rates but nearly match the conviction quality of all-female teams. That higher conviction rates coincide with fewer reversals in all-female teams rules out differences in judicial leniency across teams as the main driver. That mixed-gender teams convict less often than all-female teams, despite similar conviction quality, points instead to coordination costs. We formalize these insights in a model of diagnostic skills in which individuals differ in both preferences and their ability to distinguish guilt from innocence, stemming from effort or raw talent. Model estimates, together with reduced-form evidence on conviction and overturn patterns, judicial written opinions, and deliberation times, show that frictions arise in gender-mixed teams and that variations in effort, rather than preferences alone, drive our results.