Court performance in Brazil: evidence from judicature-level data.

This paper presents a quantitative assessment of court productivity in Brazil, based on a novel database, containing production indicators of nearly nine thousand state judges of first instance for a period of eight months. Court productivity is measured by standard indicators including clearance rate, congestion rate, backlog index (time to resolve a case), resolved cases per judge and pending cases per judge. Dakolias (1999) compares those indicators across countries. Using a fixed-effects, panel-data model I explain court productivity by the use of inputs (number and status of judges and staff); judge characteristics (tenure, age and gender); and court characteristics (caseload, nature of cases handled, size of the judicial district â€" which obeys a nationwide classification). Results suggest that the number of resolved cases per judge increases with tenure and titularity of the judge and with the size of the judicial district. Larger districts rely on a larger infrastructure of judicial and extrajudicial services which enhance court performance. Total factor productivity is not normal in most states, suggesting that unobserved features of the administration of state justice systems are important in explaining court performance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]