A Columbia University professor and a PhD candidate affiliated with the university’s Center for Political Economy have co-authored a paper just published that found a steady increase of wealth bias in rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court since the mid-20th century.
Professor Andrea Prat and student Jacob Spitz co-authored the study, “Ruling for the Rich: The Supreme Court over Time,” with Fiona Scott Morton of Yale University as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Prat is the Richard Paul Richman Professor of Business, Economics at Columbia Business School and a member of the Center’s advisory board. Spitz is a PhD candidate in economics at Columbia Business School and one of 30 recipients of the graduate student grants awarded last year by the Center.
With the aim of the study was to investigate if a pro-wealthy bias exists in the court, researchers developed a protocol to identify and analyze all cases involving economic issues from 1953 to the present. Their findings indicated a steady increase in polarization with rulings that favor the wealthy.
