Incentives matter: electing judges file

This example comes from Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution. Tabarrok writes

My work on judicial elections shows that elected judges serve their constituents (see also Judge and Jury). In particular, when the defendant is an out-of-state corporation awards are much higher in states that use partisan elections to select their judges than in other states. As one judge put it bluntly:

As long as I am allowed to redistribute wealth from out-of-state companies to injured in-state plaintiffs, I shall continue to do so. Not only is my sleep enhanced when I give someone's else money away, but so is my job security, because the in-state plaintiffs, their families, and their friends will reelect me."

Richard Neely (1988), West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.