We empirically investigate the effect of electronic case-processing on court efficacy. We draw on monthly court-level panel data on adjudication and enforcement in Brazilian labor justice, a major pillar of the Brazilian justice system where electronic case-processing is a recent phenomenon and court inefficacy has been a pervasive concern. Using dynamic panel methods and multiple estimation approaches to address endogeneity, we show, first and foremost, that in both adjudication and enforcement a shift to electronic case-processing unequivocally increases judicial productivity and court clearance rate while reducing case disposition times. In adjudication, electronification exhibits diminishing marginal returns: additional electronification does not yield further efficacy gains once the share of electronically-processed court caseload is between 50% and 75%. We do not find similarly stark evidence of plateauing of the effect of electronification in enforcement, a key court activity domain where attaining fully electronic case-processing would thus be especially advantageous. Overall, our findings suggest that electronic case-processing provides one viable path to unclogging courts and enhancing administration of justice.

我们实证研究电子案件处理对法庭效能的影响。我们利用有关巴西劳动司法裁决和执行的法院级小组月度数据，这是巴西司法系统的一个主要支柱，电子案件处理是最近才出现的现象，而法院效率低下一直是人们普遍关注的问题。使用动态面板方法和多种估计方法来解决内生性问题，我们首先表明，在裁决和执行中，向电子案件处理的转变无疑提高了司法生产力和法院结案率，同时减少了案件处理时间。在审判中，电子化表现出边际收益递减：一旦电子处理的法庭案件量的比例在 50% 到 75% 之间，额外的电子化就不会产生进一步的效率提升。我们没有发现类似的明显证据表明电子化在执行中的效果趋于稳定，这是法院的一个关键活动领域，实现完全电子化的案件处理将特别有利。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，电子案件处理为疏通法院和加强司法行政提供了一条可行的途径。