Heuristics and Biases in Bankruptcy Judges

Abstract

First let me express the pleasure that I have had in reading and commenting on the paper of Jeffrey Rachlinski, Chris Guthrie, and Andrew Wistrich (Rachlinski, GUTHRIE, AND WlSTRICH [2007]). The paper addresses an interesting and important issue, which is: apart from the well-known advantages associated with specialization in expertise, due to a more accurate knowledge of the law in a specific area, is the specialization of judges a good thing, in the sense that it enables specialized judges to develop routines (rules of thumb, heuristics) so as to avoid errors of judgment? In order to test this hypothesis, the authors have designed an experimental study based on a panel of 113 judges specialized in bankruptcy law, recruited during a judicial education conference. Roughly speaking, the authors have tested two different families of possible effects on bankruptcy judges' decisions: on the one hand, judges may be vulnerable to cognitive biases (anchoring effects, framing effects); on the other, they may be influenced by moral feelings or ideologies. The results of the experiment show that bankruptcy judges display sensitivity to both anchoring effects and framing effects, and that their personal political orientation also has an effect on their decisions. In contrast, it appears that they are not sensitive to apologies by debtors, the omission-commission distinction, or the debtor's