American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review 17 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev., No. 1, Spring, 2009. Boston College Law Review 50 B.C. L. Rev., No. 3, May, 2009. Boston University Public Interest Law Journal 18 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J., No. 2, Spring, 2009. Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution 10 Cardozo J. Conflict Resol., No. 2, Spring, 2009. Cardozo Public Law, Policy, & Ethics Journal 7 Cardozo Pub. L. Pol’y & Ethics J., No. 3, Summer, 2009. Chicago Journal of International Law 10 Chi. J. Int’l L., No. 1, Summer, 2009. Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 20 Colo. J. Int’l Envtl. L. & Pol’y, No. 2, Winter, 2009. Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts 32 Colum. J.L. & Arts, No. 3, Spring, 2009. Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal 8 Conn. Pub. Int. L.J., No. 2, Spring-Summer, 2009. Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 18 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol’y, No. 1, Fall, 2008. Cornell Law Review 94 Cornell L. Rev., No. 5, July, 2009. Creighton Law Review 42 Creighton L. Rev., No. 3, April, 2009. Criminal Law Forum 20 Crim. L. Forum, Nos. 2-3, Pp. 173-394, 2009. Delaware Journal of Corporate Law 34 Del. J. Corp. L., No. 2, Pp. 433-754, 2009. Environmental Law Reporter News & Analysis 39 Envtl. L. Rep. News & Analysis, No. 7, July, 2009. European Journal of International Law 20 Eur. J. Int’l L., No. 2, April, 2009. Family Law Quarterly 43 Fam. L.Q., No. 1, Spring, 2009. Georgetown Journal of International Law 40 Geo. J. Int’l L., No. 3, Spring, 2009. Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 22 Geo. J. Legal Ethics, No. 2, Spring, 2009. Golden Gate University Law Review 39 Golden Gate U. L. Rev., No. 2, Winter, 2009. Harvard Environmental Law Review 33 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev., No. 2, Pp. 297-608, 2009. International Review of Law and Economics 29 Int’l Rev. L. & Econ., No. 1, March, 2009. Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation 24 J. Envtl. L. & Litig., No. 1, Pp. 1-201, 2009. Journal of Legislation 34 J. Legis., No. 1, Pp. 1-98, 2008. Journal of Technology Law & Policy 14 J. Tech. L. & Pol’y, No. 1, June, 2009. Labor Lawyer 24 Lab. Law., No. 3, Winter/Spring, 2009. Michigan Journal of International Law 30 Mich. J. Int’l L., No. 3, Spring, 2009. New Criminal Law Review 12 New Crim. L. Rev., No. 2, Spring, 2009. Northern Kentucky Law Review 36 N. Ky. L. Rev., No. 4, Pp. 445-654, 2009. Ohio Northern University Law Review 35 Ohio N.U. L. Rev., No. 2, Pp. 445-886, 2009. Pace Law Review 29 Pace L. Rev., No. 3, Spring, 2009. Quinnipiac Health Law Journal 12 Quinnipiac Health L.J., No. 2, Pp. 209-332, 2008-2009. Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal 44 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L.J., No. 1, Spring, 2009. Rutgers Race and the Law Review 10 Rutgers Race & L. Rev., No. 2, Pp. 441-629, 2009. San Diego Law Review 46 San Diego L. Rev., No. 2, Spring, 2009. Seton Hall Law Review 39 Seton Hall L. Rev., No. 3, Pp. 725-1102, 2009. Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 18 S. Cal. Interdisc. L.J., No. 3, Spring, 2009. Stanford Environmental Law Journal 28 Stan. Envtl. L.J., No. 3, July, 2009. Tulsa Law Review 44 Tulsa L. Rev., No. 2, Winter, 2008. UMKC Law Review 77 UMKC L. Rev., No. 4, Summer, 2009. Washburn Law Journal 48 Washburn L.J., No. 3, Spring, 2009. Washington University Global Studies Law Review 8 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev., No. 3, Pp.451-617, 2009. Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 29 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol’y, Pp. 1-401, 2009. Washington University Law Review 86 Wash. U. L. Rev., No. 6, Pp. 1273-1521, 2009. William Mitchell Law Review 35 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev., No. 4, Pp. 1235-1609, 2009. Yale Journal of International Law 34 Yale J. Int’l L., No. 2, Summer, 2009. Yale Journal on Regulation 26 Yale J. on Reg., No. 2, Summer, 2009.

/pdf/current-index-to-legal-periodicals-8re353ze53.pdf

Current index to legal periodicals

We present the first causal estimates of the effect of Social Security Disability Insurance benefit receipt on labor supply using all program applicants. We use administrative data to matc...

/pdf/does-disability-insurance-receipt-discourage-work-using-r8u2waom0z.pdf

Does Disability Insurance Receipt Discourage Work? Using Examiner Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Partiality: community, citizenship and the defence of closure 2. Impartiality: freedom, equality and open borders 3. The Federal Republic of Germany: the rise and fall of a right to asylum 4. The United Kingdom: the value of asylum 5. The United States: the making and breaking of a refugee consensus 6. Australia: restricting asylum, resettling refugees 7. From ideal to non-ideal theory: reckoning with the state, politics and consequences 8. Liberal democratic states and ethically defensible asylum practices List of references Index.

/pdf/the-ethics-and-politics-of-asylum-liberal-democracy-and-the-39a2ynk94m.pdf

The Ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees

We present the first estimates of the causal effects of Social Security Disability Insurance receipt on labor supply estimated using the entire population of program applicants. We exploit administrative data to match applications to disability examiners, and use natural variation in examiners’ allowance rates as an instrument for the allowance decision in a labor supply equation contrasting denied vs. allowed applicants. Importantly, we find that the disincentive effect is heterogeneous, ranging from a 10 percentage point reduction in labor force participation for those with more severe impairments to a 60 percentage point reduction for entrants with relatively less severe impairments.  Maestas: RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401 (e-mail: maestas@rand.org); Mullen: RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401 (e-mail: kmullen@rand.org); Strand: Social Security Administration, 500 E Street, 9 th Floor, Washington, DC 20254 (e-mail: Alexander.Strand@ssa.gov). We thank Josh Angrist, David Autor, John Bound, Raj Chetty, Eli Donkar, Kirk Doran, Joe Doyle, Eric French, Larry Katz, Lee Lockwood, Erin Johnson, Day Manoli, Heather Royer, David Stapleton, Till von Wachter, Heidi Williams, participants in the 2010 MRRC Researcher Workshop, the 2010 All-CA Labor Economics Conference at UC-Santa Barbara, and the 2011 American Economic Association meetings, and seminar participants at the Center for Business and Public Policy at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, RAND, and the MIT Economics Department for helpful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) through the Michigan Retirement Research Center (MRRC). The opinions and conclusions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent the opinions or policy of SSA or any agency of the Federal Government.

Using Examiner Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt

We find consistent evidence of negative autocorrelation in decision making that is unrelated to the merits of the cases considered in three separate highstakes field settings: refugee asylum court decisions, loan application reviews, and Major League Baseball umpire pitch calls. The evidence is most consistent with the law of small numbers and the gambler’s fallacy—people underestimating the likelihood of sequential streaks occurring by chance—leading to negatively autocorrelated decisions that result in errors. The negative autocorrelation is stronger among more moderate and less experienced decision makers, following longer streaks of decisions in one direction, when the current and previous cases share similar characteristics or occur close in time, and when decision makers face weaker incentives for accuracy. Other explanations for negatively autocorrelated decisions such as quotas, learning, or preferences to treat all parties fairly are less consistent with the evidence, though we cannot completely rule out sequential contrast effects as an alternative explanation. JEL Codes: D03, D08, G02.

/pdf/decision-making-under-the-gambler-s-fallacy-evidence-from-uz9pnomqa9.pdf

Decision Making Under the Gambler’s Fallacy: Evidence from Asylum Judges, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires

This study analyzes databases of merits decisions from all four levels of the asylum adjudication process: 133,000 decisions by 884 asylum officers over a seven year period; 140,000 decisions of 225 immigration judges over a four-and-a-half year period; 126,000 decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals over six years; and 4215 decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeal during 2004 and 2005. The analysis reveals significant disparities in grant rates, even when different adjudicators in the same office each considered large numbers of applications from nationals of the same country. In many cases, the most important moment in an asylum case is the instant in which a clerk randomly assigns an application to a particular asylum officer or immigration judge. Using cross-tabulations based on public biographies, the paper also explores correlations between sociological characteristics of individual immigration judges and their grant rates. The cross tabulations show that the chance of winning asylum was strongly affected by whether or not the applicant had legal representation, by the gender of the immigration judge, and by the immigration judge's work experience prior to appointment. In their conclusion, the authors do not recommend enforced quota systems for asylum adjudicators, but they do make recommendations for more comprehensive training, more effective and independent appellate review, and other reforms that would further professionalize the adjudication system.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1079962_code497260.pdf?abstractid=983946&mirid=1

Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication

Addressing consistency in the application of the law, former Attorney General Robert Jackson told Congress in 1940: “It is obviously repugnant to one’s sense of justice that the judgment meted out . . . should depend in large part on a purely fortuitous circumstance; namely the personality of the particular judge before whom the case happens to come for disposition.” Yet in asylum cases, which can spell the difference between life and death, the outcome apparently depends in large measure on which government official decides the claim. In many cases, the most important moment in an asylum case is the instant in which a clerk randomly assigns an application to a particular asylum officer or immigration judge. 1 Jaya Ramji-Nogales is Assistant Professor of Law, Temple University, Beasley School of Law. Andrew Schoenholtz is Visiting Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, and Deputy Director, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University. Philip G. Schrag is Professor of Law and Director, Center for Applied Legal Studies, Georgetown University Law Center. The authors thank Dr. B. Lindsay Lowell, Director of Policy Studies at the Institute for the Study of International Migration, for his wise counsel and statistical analyses of the data reported in this article, and Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Associate Dean for Research Larry Gostin, and the Georgetown University Law Center for their generous funding of the cross-tabulations and regression analysis reported in Part III , as well as Temple University, Beasley School of law for support for this project. Many thanks go to Profs. Jonathan M. Ladd and David Hoffman, as well as Luis Carlos Ramji-Nogales, for consulting with us about methods of presenting statistical findings. The authors also wish to thank their very able research assistants, Elizabeth Banaszak, Anaxet Jones, Kristin Ketelhut, Paulo Cesar DeFreitas Mamede, Daniel McLaughlin, Asa Piyaka and Zhi Yu, for their outstanding help with compilation and organization of the data. We are indebted to David Berten and I.V. Ashton, who obtained the immigration court data on which we draw heavily in Part III of this article. We also appreciate the cooperation of the Executive Office of Immigration Review in the Department of Justice and the Asylum Office of the Department of Homeland Security, which provided the databases that we analyzed in Parts II and IV of this article. We also benefited enormously from suggestions by many scholars who read earlier drafts, including Stacy Caplow, Maryellen Fullerton, Lauren Gilbert, Kate Jastram, Audrey Macklin, David Martin, Susan Martin, Stephen Knight, Karen Musalo, Lori Nessel, John Palmer, and Louis Michael Seidman. Special thanks are due to Hiroshi Motomura for allowing us to present this article as a work in progress at the 2006 immigration law professors’ workshop.

/pdf/refugee-roulette-disparities-in-asylum-adjudication-3ka4rgla1g.pdf

List of Figures List of Tables Foreword by Senator Edward M. Kennedy Acknowledgments Introduction Part I Refugee Roulette 1 The Asylum Process 2 The Regional Asylum Offices 3 The Immigration Courts 4 The Board of Immigration Appeals 5 The United States Courts of Appeals 6 Conclusions and Policy RecommendationsPart II International, Judicial, and Scholarly Perspectives 7 Refugee Roulette in the Canadian Casino Audrey Macklin 8 Refugee Roulette: A UK Perspective Robert Thomas 9 Consistency, Credibility, and Culture Bruce J. Einhorn 10 Asylum in a Different Voice? Judging Immigration Claims and Gender Carrie Menkel-Meadow 11 Refugee Roulette in an Administrative Law Context: The Deja Vu of Decisional Disparities in Agency Adjudication Margaret H. Taylor 12 Learning to Live with Unequal Justice: Asylum and the Limits to Consistency Steven H. Legomsky 13 The Counsel Conundrum: Effective Representation in Immigration Proceedings M. Margaret McKeown and Allegra McLeod Methodological Appendix Ninth Circuit Appendix Index About the Authors

Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication and Proposals for Reform

List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Seeking Refuge 2. The Applicants and the Adjudicators 3. The One-Year Filing Deadline 4. Timeliness 5. The Rejections 6. Four Eras of Asylum Adjudication: Grant Rates over Time 7. Perceptions about the Asylum Seekers 8. Variations across the Regional Asylum Offices 9. Disparities within Asylum Offices 10. The Asylum Officers 11. Conclusions Appendix: Catchment Areas of the Eight Regional Asylum Offices Notes Index About the Authors

Philip G. Schrag

Papers

Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication

Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication

Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication and Proposals for Reform

Lives in the Balance: Asylum Adjudication by the Department of Homeland Security

A Well-Founded Fear: The Congressional Battle to Save Political Asylum in America