The classic curve theory posits an inverted U-shaped relationship between the rate of civil liti-gation and economic development,yet it does not indicate whether this relationship is influenced by oth-er factors.Due to the lack of large-scale regional data,existing researches hardly directly test and a-mend the theory within the Chinese context.This empirical research based on provincial panel data shows that the civil litigation rate in China is characterized by a"decline then rise"temporal pattern and an"east-west divide"spatial pattern.It demonstrates that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship be-tween the civil litigation rate and economic development,situating presently in the curve's initial phase where the economy maintains a positive,albeit diminishing,impetus over an extended period.More im-portantly,the degree of marketization and the level of education play a moderating role in attenuating and reinforcing the curve relationship,respectively.The discovery of this interaction mechanism in Chi-na advances theoretical development,leading to the establishment of a new curve theory based on multi-ple conditions.This contributes to thinking about how to systematically improve the judicial capacity of courts,for instance,by combining the enhancement of internal management efficiency with the construc-tion of predictive mechanisms for region-specific litigation demands,as well as optimizing macro-level policies for social collaborative governance.
civil litigation ratecurve theorymoderating effectjudicial capacityempirical research
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
