The relationship between demand and performance of magistrates: investigation of a functional model in the form of an inverted U

Abstract

The hypothesis of exogenous productivity points to the relationship between the number of judges and performance as linear. However, several weaknesses have been pointed out, such as the production limit of the judges. Therefore, this work aims to test if the performance of judges related’ to demand has an inverted U functional model. The data used in the research comprise the years from 2009 to 2019. The results were statistically significant for all variables analyzed for both state and labor courts, confirming the hypothesis that performance and judicial demand may respond to an inverted U functional model. Confirming the research hypothesis sheds light on the discussion of how demand affects performance and how they relate. The contribution of this work lies in the discussion and endorsing the conclusions of other authors concerning weaknesses and incongruities of the hypothesis of exogenous productivity for the judiciary. There is empirical evidence that the increase in judicial demand pressures the increase in the performance of judges, but this increase has limits, and after a certain point, this can decline and negatively affect performance.

Keywords:
judiciary; performance; quantitative methods; workload; public administration