Measuring Potential Efficiency Gains from Mergers of Italian First Instance Courts through Nonparametric Model

Abstract

In several countries, economic development has boosted the mobility of population, changing the distribution of litigation. Hence, the increasing difference between the new demand of legal services and the old judicial maps has increased processing time and backlog, therefore, badly affecting judiciary efficiency. These issues are particular relevant for the Italian judicial system because of the Italian government's proposal (decree n. 155/ 2012) of new judicial map of first instance courts. The courts' reorganization has been achieved through the horizontal merger of some courts and the abolition of all local courthouses. This article represents the first Downloaded from attempts at measuring the potential performance improvements achieved by the enforced reform. For this purpose, we compare the efficiency levels of Italian first instance courts in 2011 with those reached by the new judicial map. Our results show not negligible efficiency gains from the proposed mergers under the variable returns to scale technology assumption.

Determinants of Judicial Efficiency in Morocco

“…In the same context, the result regarding the negative impact of pending cases on court efficiency, which is consistent with previous studies (Marselli & Vannini, 2004;Ferro et al, 2018;Lewin et al, 1982;Schneider, 2005;Castro & Guccio, 2016), demonstrates the need for Moroccan courts to act on these cases by gradually reducing them, rather than using this as an argument for an excessive increase in the resources mobilized.…”

A bootstrapped Malmquist index applied to Swedish district courts

“…Outputs normally consist of the number of decided cases (Falavigna et al 2017;Nissi and Rapposelli 2010). In some studies, cases are separated by type; for example, criminal cases and civil cases (Finocchiaro Castro and Guccio 2016). However, due to data limitations, the studies cannot separate outputs within each category based on the spent resources.…”

Impacts on efficiency of merging the Swedish district courts

“…Less attention has been given to mergers. To the best of our knowledge, only Finocchiaro Castro and Guccio (2016) investigate the potential, ex ante, gains of merging within the scope of district courts and Santos and Amado (2014) examine whether small courts have a higher degree of inefficiency than larger due to planned absorption. Additionally, Falavigna et al (2018) investigate whether efficiency could be enhanced by reducing the number of sections in the courts.…”

“…Outputs are generally measured as the number of closed cases (Nissi and Rapposelli 2010;Falavigna et al 2018), which are, in some studies, separated by class; e.g., criminal and civil cases (Finocchiaro Castro and Guccio 2016). Further analysis of the relative complexity of the cases within classes is normally absent, resorting to simple counting.…”