If Judge Neil Gorsuch is confirmed to the Supreme Court, he will become not only the ninth vote in a divided court but also a colleague with the potential to move his eight peers in a conservative direction. A compelling new analysis suggests that this kind of peer effect may even be more consequential than a justice’s vote.

This means that the stakes over who fills the vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia are higher than is widely understood.

The finding that Supreme Court justices have a big effect on their colleagues comes from a recent working paper, “Peer Effects on the United States Supreme Court,” by three economists, Richard Holden of the University of New South Wales, Michael Keane of Oxford University, and Matthew Lilley, an Australian pursuing his doctorate at Harvard. Though not yet peer-reviewed, the paper is already making waves in academic circles.

Social scientists have long been interested in peer effects — the idea that we influence and are influenced by those around us. In the judicial context, it means that whoever is seated in the vacant Supreme Court seat will influence the decisions made by other Supreme Court justices, just as the new nominee will be influenced by the existing eight justices.