June 10, 2024 — A new, peer-reviewed open-access publication, the Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis has been launched as part of an international collaboration by esteemed legal scholars at major universities, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Published by Sage Publishing, the Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis is an important addition to the realm of legal scholarship. The interdisciplinary journal is dedicated to the growing field of empirical legal studies to foster rigorous inquiry and dialogue in the field. The journal seeks to engage a broad audience, including social scientists, jurists interested in empirical legal studies, the wider academic legal community, and legal policymakers.

The editorial team includes Prof. Eyal Zamir, the Augusto Levi Professor of Commercial Law at the Faculty of Law of Hebrew University; Prof. Lee Epstein; Prof. Dan Klerman of the University of Southern California; and Prof. Christoph Engel of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn, Germany.

“The four editors-in-chief hail from three academic institutions across North America, Europe, and Asia, offering a diverse array of interdisciplinary perspectives in law and economics, law and political science, as well as law and psychology,” says Prof. Zamir. “With the editorial board’s even broader geographical and disciplinary diversity, the new journal aspires to advance cutting-edge empirical legal analysis globally. It represents a pivotal step forward in legal scholarship, emphasizing the importance of empirical research in understanding the intricacies of legal systems.”

For scholars and researchers interested in contributing to the journal or accessing its content, further information is available here.

The debut issue of this journal offers an array of articles at the forefront of empirical legal research, including:

• “Constraining Constitution-Making” by Adam Chilton, Cristián Eyzaguirre, David Landau, and Mila Versteeg
• “Filling the Void: How E.U. Privacy Law Spills Over to the U.S.” by Kevin E. Davis and Florencia Marotta-Wurgler
• “Reconciling Legal and Empirical Conceptions of Disparate Impact: An Analysis of Police Stops Across California” by Joshua Grossman, Julian Nyarko, and Sharad Goel
• “The 2012 Greek Retrofit And Borrowing Costs In The European Periphery” by Gaurang Mitu Gulati, Patrick Bolton, Ugo Panizza, and Xuewen Fu
• “Gendered Judicial Opinions” by Michael Livermore, Keith Carlson, Daniel N. Rockmore, and Nina Varsava
• “Partisan Panel Composition and Reliance on Earlier Opinions in the Circuit Courts” by Kevin Quinn, Stuart Benjamin, and ByungKoo Kim
• “Can Law Students Replace Judges in Experiments of Judicial Decision-Making?” by Holger Spamann and Lars Klöhn
• “Are We Underestimating the Crime Prevention Outcomes of Community Policing? The Importance of Crime Reporting Sensitivity Bias” by David Weisburd, David B. Wilson, Charlotte Gill, Kiseong Kuen, and Taryn Zastrow
• “The Role of Judge Ideology in Strategic Retirements in U.S. Federal Courts” by John Deschler and Maya Sen

Editorial Board

The journal’s editorial board, comprised of leading scholars from diverse disciplines, ensures a broad and interdisciplinary perspective. Members in alphabetical order include:

• Tom Baker,Carey Law School, University of Pennsylvania
• Yun-chien Chang, Cornell Law School
• Alejandro Chehtman, Law School, University Torcuato Di Tella
• John Donohue, School of Law, Stanford University
• Susann Fiedler, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Department of Strategy and Innovation, Institute for Cognition and Behavior
• Michael Frakes, Duke University School of Law
• Jim Greiner, Harvard Law School
• Mitu Gulati, University of Virginia School of Law
• Ulrike Hahn, Birkbeck University of London
• Eric Helland, Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, Claremont McKenna College
• Gretchen Helmke, Department of Political Science, University of Rochester
• Naomi Lamoreaux, Department of History, Yale University
• David Law, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
• Michael Livermore, University of Virginia School of Law
• Florencia Marotta-Wurgler, NYU School of Law
• Michael J. Nelson, Department of Political Science, Penn State University
• Anthony Niblett, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
• Eric Posner, The University of Chicago Law School
• Ilana Ritov, School of Education and Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Emily Ryo, Duke University School of Law
• Maya Sen, Kennedy School, Harvard University
• Dan Simon, Gould School of Law, University of Southern California
• Holger Spamann, Harvard Law School
• Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School
• Doron Teichman, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Mila Versteeg, University of Virginia School of Law
• Keren Weinshall, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• David Weisburd, Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem