This week's seminar is as follows:

"Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles" joint with N. Mocan

Speaker: Ozkan Eren Louisiana State University

Seminar sponsored by: The Department of Economics, University of Manitoba Manitoba RDC

Friday, December 4th , 2015 2:30 - 4:00 PM 307 Tier Building University of Manitoba For more information call: 204-474-9207

All are welcome to attend. Here is the abstract for the paper:

Using the universe of juvenile court decisions in a U.S. state between 1996 and 2012, we analyze the effects of emotional shocks associated with unexpected outcomes of football games played by a prominent college team in the state. We find that unexpected losses increase disposition (sentence) lengths assigned by judges during the work week following the game. Unexpected wins, or losses that were expected to be close contests ex-ante, have no effect. The impacts of emotional shocks are asymmetrically borne by black defendants. Similarly, sentencing decisions following an important game, and juveniles who have committed felony offenses are impacted. These results provide evidence of expectation-based reference point behavior/loss aversion among a uniformly highly-educated group of individuals (judges), with decisions involving high stakes (sentence lengths). They also point to the existence of a subtle and previously-unnoticed capricious application of sentencing.

Thank you,

Gwen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gwendolyn Band Office Assistant Department of Economics Room 501 Fletcher Argue Building University of Manitoba R3T 5V5 Ph: (204) 474-6239 Gwendolyn.Band@umanitoba.camailto:Gwendolyn.Band@umanitoba.ca