The paper explores why and how economists entered the courtrooms as expert witnesses in employment discrimination cases in the US. The main sources are published legal decisions. I analyze the courts’ and economists’ discourses on the use of a specific method: multiple regression analysis in relation to litigation history, academic debates, and the institutional settings of expertise within the courts. I first show how the early reception of the method in the late 1970s did not involve systematic rejection from the courts but rather a large amount of skepticism. I then illustrate how economic theory underlying the method was progressively introduced in the “judicial tool kit” and how the debates in the courtrooms relate to the debates in academia in the 1980s. By 1989, practical and ethical questions regarding the institutional settings of experts’ testimony took center stage, reflecting the increasing professionalization of forensic economics.

中文翻译：

---

经济学家如何进入“数字游戏”：衡量 1971-1989 年美国法院的歧视

本文探讨了经济学家为何以及如何在美国就业歧视案件中作为专家证人进入法庭。主要来源是公布的法律决定。我分析了法院和经济学家关于使用特定方法的论述：与诉讼历史、学术辩论和法院内专业知识的制度设置相关的多元回归分析。我首先展示了 1970 年代后期对这种方法的早期接受是如何不涉及法院系统的拒绝，而是大量的怀疑。然后，我将说明该方法背后的经济理论是如何逐步引入“司法工具包”的，以及法庭上的辩论如何与 1980 年代学术界的辩论相关联。到 1989 年，