Federal Judge Ideology: A New Measure of Ex Ante Litigation Risk
基于司法决策的政治理论，提出联邦法官意识形态作为事前诉讼风险的新度量，发现自由派法官辖区的公司被证券集体诉讼起诉的概率比保守派辖区高33.5%，且该效应在Tellabs案后更强，对拥有更成熟股东和更高预期诉讼成本的公司更显著。
ABSTRACT Drawing on the political theory of judicial decision making, our paper proposes a new and parsimonious ex ante litigation risk measure: federal judge ideology. We find that judge ideology complements existing measures of litigation risk based on industry membership and firm characteristics. Firms in liberal circuits (the third quartile in ideology) are 33.5% more likely to be sued in securities class action lawsuits than those in conservative circuits (the first quartile in ideology). This result is stronger after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Tellabs case. We next show that the effect of judge ideology on litigation risk is greater for firms with more sophisticated shareholders and with higher expected litigation costs. Furthermore, judicial appointments affect litigation risk and the value of firms in the circuit, highlighting the economic consequences of political appointments of judges. Finally, using our new measure, we document that litigation risk deters managers from providing long‐term earnings guidance, a result that existing measures of litigation risk cannot show.