Explaining the demand for court services

Abstract

In order to effectively tackle court delay, insight into the determinants of both the supply of and the demand for court services is detrimental. Since the empirical analyses of the demand side remains scarce, this paper, for the first time, examines the impact of the access to justice on litigation for a panel of 27 European countries. The empirical analysis shows that reduced legal costs, or financial accessibility, augment the recourse to justice. Remarkably, an increased geographical accessibility does not induce litigation. In fact, countries with fewer, hence larger and more efficient courts, have a more voluminous demand for justice. Finally, results suggest that informational accessibility, measured by the density of lawyers, has a significant impact on litigation because lawyers exploit their informational advantage to induce litigation when competition is tough.