Does the judicial Formalism is always Harmful?

Abstract

Abstrat: This paper makes a counterpoint to the widespread idea that more formalism leads to worst institutions and especially more corruption. The alternative hypothesis is that, in the presence of great inequality in economic and political resources, the wealthy and the politically powerful will subvert institutions in their own benefit. In such situation, the outcome of more formalism will be the opposite of the predicted, and one will face a lesser degree of corruption and better institutional indicators. A cross-country analysis with data from 109 countries regarding the judiciary system is supportive to the latter explanation, a conclusion robust to several formalism, corruption and institutional quality indexes, even when controlled for endogeneity.