Daniel L. Chen
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard
Institute for Advanced Study at Toulouse
Toulouse School of Economics
Co-Chair, Moral AI, Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
NYU Center for Data Science Lead PI, AMICUS (Analytical Metrics for Informed Courtroom Understanding and Strategy)
oTree Open Source Research Foundation
Law and economics is divided between the consequentialist view that optimal policy should be based on calculations of costs and benefits and a non-consequentialist view that policy should be determined deontologically: from duties we derive what is the correct law–what is right and just.
Are there deontological motivations, and if there are, how might we formally model these motivations? What are the implications of things like deontological motivations for economics methods and policy, and what puzzles can we explain with deontological motivations that we cannot with standard models? What is the impact of law & economics on justice?
To answer these questions, his research has
- curated 12 terabytes of archival and administrative data on judges and courts where normative ideas incubate; the data bridge machine learning, causal inference, and normative theories of justice regarding equal treatment before the law and equality based on recognition of difference
- developed a programming language to study normative commitments in experiments, now used in over 23 countries, 10 academic disciplines, private and public sectors, and local high schools
- spearheaded randomized impact evaluations to improve justice with high-frequency administrative data in 17 countries
Some current themes on consequences, formation, and measurement of normative commitments (and applications in law) include:
- Law and Development tracing the incentives that led to what are now viewed as human rights violations
- Markets and Morality how market forces interact with normative commitments
- Behavioral Judging social and psychological, economic and political influences on legal ideas and production of justice
- Law and Legitimacy role of legitimacy in legal compliance
- Demography of Ideas economics of interpretation (hermemetrics) as a source of normative commitments
- AI and Rule of Law leveraging normative commitments to facilitate justice
His research has been accepted in leading economics journals (American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, and Quarterly Journal of Economics), science journals (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Advances, Nature Human Behavior), double-blind peer-review law outlets (Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum and Law and STEM Junior Faculty Forum), 5 NeurIPS selections (Machine Learning and Law, Interpretable Machine Learning, CausalML, ML for Economic Policy, and AI for Credible Elections), and press outlets (Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Times of India) and has been referenced in 2 National Academy of Sciences Study Reports (Deterrence and the Death Penalty (2012) and Decarcerating Correctional Facilities during COVID-19 (2020)).
The research has anchored successful applications with € 11 190 000 in grant budget awarded for “Origins and Effects of Normative Commitments”, “Positive Foundations of Normative Commitments”, “Digital Humanities: Legal Analysis in a Big Data World”, "Increasing Access to Justice Through Improved Judicial Efficiency", “The Impact of Justice Innovations on Poverty, Growth, and Development”, "Data AI and IE", "Green and Digital Development", “High-Dimensional Econometrics Applications in Law and Economics”, “Markets and Morality: Do Free Markets Corrode Moral Values?”, and "oTree: An Open-Source Platform for Online, Lab, and Field Experiments".
He is Lead PI for a € 14 000 000 European Research Council Synergy grant proposal "AMICUS (Analytical Metrics for Informed Courtroom Understanding and Strategy)" that was recommended for funding in 2024 and was Coordinating PI for a € 13 300 000 European Research Council Synergy grant proposal "Difference-in-Indifference: Normative Commitments in Multiculturalist Societies" that advanced to the second stage in 2018 and PI for a € 3 600 000 European Research Council Advanced grant proposal "E-Justice Innovations in the Wake of COVID-19" that advanced to the second stage in 2022.
His research has also received support from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, European Research Council Consolidator Grant, Swiss National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, European Union, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, DFID, Google Inclusion, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, International Growth Centre, Knowledge for Trust Fund, MacArthur Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Templeton Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Institute for Humane Studies, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation.
He serves or has served on the Program Committees of NAACL Natural Legal Language Processing, International Conference on AI and Law, Econometric Society Meetings, European Economic Association, American Law and Economics Association, and European Law and Economics Association, and been invited to deliver keynotes at the European Law and Economics Association, Asia Law and Economics Association, French Law and Economics Association, International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2), AI, law, and behavioral science conferences, and the 2018 Heremans Lectures in Law & Economics.AMICUS (Analytical Metrics for Informed Courtroom Understanding and Strategy)/DE JURE (Data and Evidence for Justice Reform)’s aim is to revolutionize how legitimacy and equality in justice systems are measured, understood, and enhanced. The goal is to move from studying historical data to working with administrative data, machine learning, and RCTs to achieve a more just system. The program has thus far worked with countries in three broad categories. In the first group, AMICUS works closely with court management, judiciaries, and training academies to design, deploy, and evaluate interventions—often developing the technologies to do so. In the second group, AMICUS works with auxiliary actors involved in access to justice to assess trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) and trust in the law. In the third group, AMICUS obtains data and conducts historical analyses on judicial efficiency or inconsistencies that may spur a cycle of change.
Papers
Peer-Review Publications
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Ideas Have Consequences: The Impact of Law and Economics on American Justice
Quarterly Journal of Economics, accepted ; E. Ash, S. Naidu
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The Deterrent Effect of the Death Penalty? Evidence from British Commutations During World War I
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, accepted
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Transmitting Rights: Effective Cooperation, Inter-Gender Contact, and Student Achievement
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, forthcoming; S. Mehmood, S. Naseer
The Impact of Online Dispute Resolution on Judicial Outcomes in India
Review of Law and Economics, accepted; P. Chandra, V. Nagarathinam
The Rule of Law or the Rule of Robots? Nationally Representative Survey Evidence from Kenya
Information and Communications Technology Law, accepted; B. Flanagan, G. Almeida, A. Gitahi
Does Quadratic Voting for Survey Research Improve Policy-Making and Decision Outcomes?
Review of Law and Economics, conditionally accepted; M. Bassetti, G. Dias
In-Group Bias in the Indian Judiciary: Evidence from 5 Million Criminal Cases
Review of Economics and Statistics, 2025; doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01569; E. Ash, S. Asher, A. Bhowmick, S. Bhupatiraju, T. Devi, C. Goessmann, P. Novosad, B. Siddiqi
Covering: Mutable Characteristics and Perceptions of Voice in the U.S. Supreme Court
Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis, accepted; Y. Halberstam, A. Yu
The Data Revolution in Justice
World Development, 186 (2025); DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106834; M. Ramos-MaquedaMood and the Malleability of Moral Reasoning: The Impact of Irrelevant Factors on Judicial Decision Making
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Volume 116, June 2025, 102364 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2025.102364; M. Loecher
Motivated Reasoning in the Field: Polarization of Precedent, Prose, and Policy in U.S. Circuit Courts, 1930-2013
PLOS-ONE 20(3), e0318790. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318790; W. Lu
Priming Ideology II: Presidential Elections Increasingly Affect U.S. Judges
European Journal of Law and Economics, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-025-09842-2How Do Rights Revolutions Occur? Free Speech and the First Amendment
Social Science Research, 128 (2025) 103155; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103155; S. Yeh
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Can Policies Affect Preferences? Theory and Evidence from Random Variation in Abortion Jurisprudence
Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2025; DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12586; V. Levonyan, S. Yeh
Shaping Societal Norms: Experimental Evidence on the Normative Impacts of Free Speech Law
Journal of Economic Psychology; 107 (2025) 102799; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2025.102799
Gender Attitudes in the Judiciary: Evidence from U.S. Circuit Courts
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 16(1), 314-350, 2024; DOI: 10.1257/app.20210435; E. Ash, A. Ornaghi
Markets and Morality: How Markets Shape Our (Dis)Regard for Others
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 2024; https://doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ewae016; E. Reinhart
Teacher Vaccinations Enhance Student Achievement in Pakistan: The Role of Role Models and Theory of Mind
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121 (48) e2406034121; S. Mehmood, S. Naseer
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Altruism in Governance: Insights from Randomized Training for Pakistan's Junior Ministers
Journal of Development Economics, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103317; S. Mehmood, S. Naseer
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Grit and Academic Resilience During Covid-19
Nature NPJ Science of Learning, 2024, 9:57; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-024-00265-3; S. Ertac, T. Evgeniou, A. Nadaf, X. Miao, E. Yilmaz
Priming Ideology I: Why Do Presidential Elections Affect U.S. Judges
European Economic Review, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104835
The Judicial Superego: Implicit Egoism, Internalized Racism, and Prejudice in Three Million Sentencing Decisions
Kyklos, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12400
The Disavowal of Decisionism in American Law: Political Motivation in the Judiciary
Review of Law and Economics, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1515/rle-2024-0044; E. Reinhart
Who Cares? Measuring Attitude Strength in a Polarized Environment
Political Science Research and Methods, 2024; DOI: doi:10.1017/psrm.2024.27; C. Cavaille, K. Van der Straeten
Caste aside? Names, Networks and Justice in the Courts of Bihar, India
European Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 1(2), 2024: 151-178; S. Bhupatiraju, S. Joshi, P. Neis
Is Ambiguity Aversion a Preference? Ambiguity Aversion without Asymmetric Information
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 111 (2024) 102218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2024.102218
Mapping the Geometry of Law using Document Embeddings
European Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 1(1) (2024): 49–68; https://doi.org/10.62355/ejels.18073; S. Bhupatiraju; K. Venkataramanan
Ramadan Fasting Increases Leniency in Judges from Pakistan and India
Nature Human Behavior, 2023, 1-7; Cover article; S. Mehmood, A. Seror
Invariance of Equilibrium to the Strategy Method I: Theory
Journal of the Economic Science Association, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40881-023-00145-3; M. Schonger-
Invariance of Equilibrium to the Strategy Method II: Experimental Evidence
Journal of the Economic Science Association, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40881-023-00146-2; M. Schonger -
Non-Confrontational Extremists
European Economic Review, 157, 2023: 104521; M. Michaeli, D. Spiro
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Do Markets Overcome Repugnance? Muslim Trade Response to Anti-Muhammad Cartoons
European Economic Review, 156, 2023: 104483
Clash of Norms: Judicial Leniency on Defendant Birthdays
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 211, 324-344, 2023; A. Philippe
Judicial Compliance in District Courts
International Review of Law and Economics, 2023: 106122
Motivational Drivers for Serial Position Effects in High-Stakes Legal Decisions
Journal of Applied Psychology, 108(7), 1137–1156, 2023; O. Plonsky, Y. Feldman, T. Steiner, L. Nitzer
Social Preferences or Sacred Values? Theory and Evidence of Deontological Motivations
Science Advances, 8(19), eabb3925, 2022; M. Schonger
Measuring Judicial Sentiment: Methods and Application to U.S. Circuit Courts
Economica, 89, 362–376, 2022; E. Ash, S. Galletta
COVID-19 Within Families Amplifies the Prosociality Gap Between Adolescents of High and Low Socioeconomic Status
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118 (46), e2110891118, 2021; M. Sutter, C. Terrier
Carceral-Community Epidemiology, Structural Racism, and Covid-19 Disparities
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118 (21), e2026577118, 2021; E. Reinhart
Association of Jail Decarceration and Anti-Contagion Policies with Covid-19 Case Growth Rates in United States Counties
Journal of American Medical Association Network Open, 4(9), e2123405, 2021; E. Reinhart
Incarceration And Its Disseminations: COVID-19 Pandemic Lessons From Chicago’s Cook County Jail
Health Affairs, 39(8), 1412-1418, 2020; E. Reinhart
Automated Fact-Value Distinction in Court Opinions
European Journal of Law and Economics, 50, 451-467, 2020, lead article; Y. Cao, E. Ash
Gender Violence and the Price of Virginity: Theory and Evidence of Incomplete Marriage Contracts
Journal of Religion and Demography, 7(2), 190-221, 2020
Judicial Analytics and the Great Transformation of American Law
Artificial Intelligence and Law, 27(1), 15-42, 2019
Mandatory Disclosure: Theory and Evidence from Industry-Physician Relationships
Journal of Legal Studies, 48(2), 409-440, 2019; V. Levonyan, E. Reinhart, G. Taksler
Law and Literature: Theory and Evidence on Empathy and Guile
Review of Law and Economics, 15(1), 2018
Electoral Cycles Among U.S. Courts of Appeals Judges
Journal of Law and Economics, 60(3), 479-496, 2017; C. Berdejo
The Shareholder Wealth Effects of Delaware Litigation
American Law and Economics Review, 19(2), 287-326, 2017; A. Badawi
Decision-Making Under the Gambler’s Fallacy: Evidence From Asylum Courts, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(3): 1181-1241, 2016; T. Moskowitz, K. Shue
oTree: An Open Source Platform for Online, Lab, and Field Experiments
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 9(1), 88-97, 2016, M. Schonger, C. Wickens
Perceived Masculinity Predicts U.S. Supreme Court Outcomes
PLOS-ONE, 11(10), e0164324, 2016; Y. Halberstam, A. Yu
Are Online Labor Markets Spot Markets for Tasks? A Field Experiment on the Behavioral Response to Wages Cuts
Information Systems Research, 27(2), 403-423, 2016; J. Horton
Can Markets Stimulate Rights? On the Alienability of Legal Claims
RAND Journal of Economics, 46(1), 23-65, 2015
The Construction of Morals
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 104, 84-105, 2014; S. Yeh
Sparse Models and Methods for Optimal Instruments with an Application to Eminent Domain
Econometrica, 80(6), 2369-2429, 2012; A. Belloni, V. Chernozhukov, C. Hansen
Can Countries Reverse Fertility Decline? Evidence from France's Marriage and Baby Bonuses, 1929-1981
International Tax and Public Finance, 118(3), 252-271, 2011
Club Goods and Group Identity: Evidence from Islamic Resurgence During the Indonesian Financial Crisis
Journal of Political Economy, 118(2), 300-354, 2010
Income Distribution Dynamics with Endogenous Fertility
Journal of Economic Growth, 7(3), 227-258, 2002; M. Kremer
Interacting with AI at Work: Perceptions and Opportunities from the UK Judiciary
CHIWORK '25: Proceedings of the 4th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work, 2025 (5), 1-8, https://doi.org/10.1145/3729176.3729192; B. Flanagan, E. Solovey
Reward-on-the-Line Offline Reinforcement Learning for Conversational Agents
Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on AI, Ethics and Society, 2025; X. Lin, M. Wang, G. Yang
Civicbase: An Open-Source Platform for Deploying Quadratic Voting for Survey Research NeurIPS21
AI Magazine, 44(3), 263-273; M. Bassetti, R.Das, G. Dias, A. Mortoni
In-group Bias in the Indian Judiciary: Evidence from 5.5 million Criminal Cases
Proceedings of the 4th ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies, 2021; E. Ash, S. Asher, A. Bhowmick, S. Bhupatiraju, T. Devi, C. Goessmann, P. Novosad, B. Siddiqi
Analysis of Vocal Implicit Bias in SCOTUS Decisions Through Predictive Modeling
Proceedings of Experimental Linguistics, 2018; E. Ash, R. Vunikili, H. Ochani, D. Jaiswal, R. Deshmukh
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Non-Segmental Conditioning of Sibilant Variation in American English
Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2018; J. Phillips, A. Yu
The Genealogy of Ideology: Identifying Persuasive Memes and Predicting Agreement in the U.S. Courts of Appeals
Proceedings of the ACM Conference on AI and the Law, 2017;
