Biography
Janka Deli examines how legal institutions, particularly the rule of law, affect economic outcomes in developed economies, with focus on financial markets, international trade, and corporate behavior. Her work explores a critical legal question: can economic forces effectively constrain institutional decline where traditional legal safeguards fail? Drawing on expertise in law, economics, and empirical research methodology, she examines responses to rule of law erosion in domestic financial markets and international trade, and whether these responses—shaped by investors, firms, and institutions such as the EU—constrain further decline.
Janka is the Miller Empirical Fellow at the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and a Nonresident Academic Fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford Law School.
Her scholarship has earned multiple awards, including the Theodore Eisenberg Poster Prize at the 2023 Conference of Empirical Legal Studies and the Best Workshop Paper Prize from the International Law and Social Science Interest Group at the 2025 American Society of International Law Annual Meeting. At Stanford, she received the prestigious Gerald J. Lieberman Fellowship and Gerald Gunther Prize.
Janka’s research has been supported by the Miller Institute at Berkeley Law, the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford Data Science, Stanford University’s Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, and László Sólyom (late Chief Justice of Hungary’s Constitutional Court and President of Hungary), among others.
She earned JSD (2024) and JSM (2019) degrees from Stanford Law School, and a JD (summa cum laude) with a Certificate in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest (2017). At Stanford University, she previously held the Gerhard Casper Fellowship in Rule of Law at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (2023–2024) and was a Data Science Scholar at Stanford Data Science (2020–2023).
Publications & Works in Progress
- Filling the Void: The European Union’s Unique Position to Lead Climate Mobility Financing, 120 AJIL UNBOUND (2025).
- Szerződések (Contracts), in BEVEZETÉS A JOG VISELKEDÉSI KÖZGAZDASÁGTANI ELEMZÉSÉBE (INTRODUCTION TO BEHAVIORAL LAW & ECONOMICS) 111–160 (Gergely Deli, Gábor Kemény, & József Tóth eds., 2020).
- Investors Adapt: Diminishing Stock Market Response to Rule of Law Decline.
- Is Rule of Law Decline Rewarded in Trade? Lessons from the European Union.
- Bankrolling Backsliding: The European Union’s Authoritarian Equilibrium in Hungary.
- Improving Rule of Law Impact Studies: A New, Events-Based Approach.
- Silver Linings of the EU Migration Pact: Progressive Elements and Binding Solidarity (with Katerina Linos), OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS (forthcoming, 2026).
Teaching Interests
Contracts, International Business Transactions, International Economic Law, Global Financial Regulation, European Union Law, Public International Law, Empirical Legal Studies, Statistical Inference in Law.
Contact
Email: janka.deli@berkeley.edu
By appointment: 312 Berkeley Law West, 2680 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720