Replication Data for: Making Local Courts Work: The Judicial Recentralization Reform and Local Protectionism in China

Despite rich comparative research on the relationship between government and court, the institutional foundation for the independence and administration of local judiciaries is still an understudied field. Crucially, is a decentralized system, where local governments appoint judges and finance court budgets, more conducive to court autonomy than a centralized system that allows higher-level governments to control local judiciaries? We answer this question by investigating a reform in China that gradually recentralizes the control of local courts. Applying a difference-in-differences design over a unique dataset of listed firms' lawsuits (2012--2018), we find that recentralization reduces local officials' ability to interfere with local court decision-making and reduces local litigants' advantage. These results demonstrate that recentralization helps insulate courts from government influence and improve judicial independence under certain conditions.