The Law and Policy of Judicial Retirement: An Empirical Study
研究了美国联邦法官养老金归属制度如何影响退休决策，发现该制度促使法官按时退休，但高质量和富裕法官对财务激励不敏感，部分法官会择机退休以让总统任命志同道合者。
Lifetime tenure maximizes judicial independence by shielding judges from political pressures but creates problems of its own. Judges with independence may implement their political preferences. Judges may remain in office after their abilities degrade with age. The U.S. federal system addresses these problems in an indirect way. When judges’ pensions vest, they receive full pay regardless of whether they work. This limits some of the harmful effects of judicial independence by encouraging judges to vacate their offices when they become old and by causing judges who find their work burdensome to leave office. We test the benefits and costs of this system for federal district judges. We find that the vesting system causes judges to retire as expected, that higher quality and wealthier judges are less sensitive to the financial incentives of the system, and that some judges appear to time retirement so that the president will appoint like-minded judges.