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When Do Judges Throw the Book at Companies? The Influence of Partisanship in Corporate Prosecutions

Todd A. Gormley et al.

The Review of Financial Studies2026https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhaf027article
FT50UTD24AJG 4*ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

We document that judges’ political affiliations are strongly associated with the level of judicial penalties levied against companies. For example, Republican-appointed judges impose larger fines for hiring illegal immigrants, while Democrat-appointed judges impose larger fines for pollution- and environment-related violations. Time-series variation suggests that political partisanship, not fixed ideological differences, drives these findings. The differences become amplified when higher-court judicial vacancies exist and in the months before national elections. Our findings highlight the importance of political polarization for U.S. companies and illustrate how judicial composition can affect firms’ incentive to avoid violating laws connected to partisan issues.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhaf027

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{todd2026,
  title        = {{When Do Judges Throw the Book at Companies? The Influence of Partisanship in Corporate Prosecutions}},
  author       = {Todd A. Gormley et al.},
  journal      = {The Review of Financial Studies},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhaf027},
}

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When Do Judges Throw the Book at Companies? The Influence of Partisanship in Corporate Prosecutions

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.