Multitasking, Multiarmed Bandits, and the Italian Judiciary

Abstract

We model how a judge schedules cases as a multi-armed bandit problem. The model indicates that a first-in-first-out (FIFO) scheduling policy is optimal when the case completion hazard rate function is monotonic. But there are two ways to implement FIFO in this context: at the hearing level or at the case level. Our model indicates that the former policy, prioritizing the oldest hearing, is optimal when the case completion hazard rate function decreases, and the latter policy, prioritizing the oldest case, is optimal when the case completion hazard rate function increases. This result convinced six judges of the Roman Labor Court of Appeals-a court that exhibits increasing hazard rates-to switch from hearing-level FIFO to case-level FIFO. Tracking these judges for eight years, we estimate that our intervention decreased the average case duration by 12% and the probability of a decision being appealed to the Italian supreme court by 3.8%, relative to a 44-judge control sample.

Projection Bias in Effort Choices

“…Projection bias provides a complementary explanation that people overestimate how much they will work. Regarding my results on multi-tasking, Coviello, Ichino, and Persico (2015) and Bray et al (2016) find empirical evidence that it decreases productivity. Coviello, Ichino, and Persico (2014) show that workers may engage knowingly in intrinsically inefficient multi-tasking due to lobbying by co-workers and superiors.…”

Measuring the Gains from Labor Specialization

“…In previous work (Coviello et al 2014(Coviello et al , 2015Bray et al 2016) we have shown that judicial workflow management practices, and in particular multitasking, can have a significant impact on judicial productivity. This line of work is distinct from the present paper because workflow management refers to the efficient (or not) scheduling of individual hearings of different cases, whereas the present paper looks at the probability of closing a case in a given hearing, that is, conditional on how the workflow has been managed.…”

“…Cases A and B are adjudicated in their first hearing with probabilities p 1,A , p 1,B > 0, else a second hearing is necessary. In previous work (Coviello et al 2014(Coviello et al , 2015Bray et al 2016) we have shown that it is more efficient to wait until case A is adjudicated before starting on case B. This is workflow management.…”

Impacts of the Stimulate, Appreciate, Learn and Transfer community engagement approach to increase immunization coverage in Assam, India

“…The evidence that does exist provides some indication of what works -successful reforms include training judges on better case flow management in Pakistan (Chemin 2009b); adopting first-in-first-out procedures in Italy (Bray et al 2016); placing time limits on decisions in Senegal (Kondylis and Stein 2018); establishing specialized courts and simplifying procedures in Brazil (Lichand and Soares 2014); providing better information to litigants in Mexico (Sadka, Seira and Woodruff 2018); or implementing a bundle of reforms, including court-appointed mediation, limits on trial duration and adjournments, required affidavit furnishment, and mobile justice in India (Chemin 2009a).…”