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The article proposes a principal-agent theory of en banc review in the U.S. Under the proposed model, the Courts of Appeals use judicial ideology cues in deciding whether to grant an en banc review. When judicial actors make decisions that does not conform to their ideological biases, the risk of dissenting opinions, reversals of lower courts, and liberal decisions are mitigated. It is also noted that Full Circuit courts restrain their own behavior as agents of their principal, the Supreme Court.

One of the few stated criteria by which the Supreme Court decides to hear a case is the existence of a conflict among the regional judicial circuits. However, a circuit split does not automatically lead the Supreme Court to review a case, and the justices have often allowed circuit splits - and thereby the application of different legal standards across the country - to stand for long periods of time. What explains the Court's tolerance of circuit conflict, and its eventual decision to resolve a circuit split? We model the Supreme Court's decision to intervene in an inter-circuit conflict as an optimal stopping problem. The Court faces a strategic trade-off between allowing conflict to continue while learning about the implications of the possible policy choices and intervening to end a costly conflict between the circuits. Our model provides the first theoretical framework for understanding the Court's resolution of inter-circuit conflict. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental question in the study of American government concerns the extent to which our democracy is representative. Students have explored whether governmental decision-makers respond to the preferences of their constituents. Most studies have asked whether the content of laws that are enacted reflects public preferences. I argue that beyond policy responsiveness, representation takes place through position-taking by elected representatives. Position-taking is a form of public posturing that can convey information about constituent opinion to other decision-makers. I outline a simple formal logic for legislative position-taking. I then show that a correlation between public opinion and bill sponsorship, net of a legislator's preferences, implies that less well-informed elites can learn about public opinion by observing position-taking. Original evidence on state-level opinion and bill sponsorship is used to demonstrate the effect of public opinion on position-taking. The evidence indicates that public opinion is given voice in governmental decision-making and that elites who wants to learn about public opinion can do so by observing symbolic position-taking by members of the House. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]