Evaluating input- and output-specific inefficiency in courts of justice. An empirical study of Polish district courts

Abstract

Efficient judicial systems are acknowledged to benefit economic growth, firm competition, entrepreneurship, and financial market development. The goal of this paper is to measure the relative technical inefficiency of Polish district courts for the period 2017–2021 in civil, criminal, and family cases. Unlike other papers on justice (in)efficiency, this study uses input-specific and output-specific production models combined with the Data Envelopment Analysis technique. This approach allows for assessment of the contributions of specific inputs and outputs to overall court inefficiency. The results show considerable differences in inefficiencies with regard to courts’ specific inputs and outputs and the types of cases being processed. The evidence shows that the greatest inefficiency is found among court workers (i.e., other judicial staff and judges), while among judges, it is civil judges, with this result being robust to the model's specification. According to the results, the year 2020 marked a clear increase in the inefficiency of almost all variables, which can be attributed to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and restrictions on the functioning of the courts. Finally, the results also highlight a heterogeneity among courts depending on their geographical location and size, with courts related to the largest cities and those of large size tending to be the most inefficient.