Policymaking under Constraint: Decision Modes in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

The caseload of the U.S. Courts of Appeals has increased dramatically while the volume of cases decided by the United States Supreme Court has declined precipitously. Thus, the Courts of Appeals have increasingly assumed an important policymaking role as the final arbiter of federal law, while simultaneously confronted with increased demand to monitor the decisions of the U.S. District Courts for error. In the present study, we exploit this...