Here. Excerpt, reporting on a study by Lendedu: When Lendedu talked to 477 undergraduate and graduate students at three Bay Area campuses, it found that just 6 percent of them knew how long they would be repaying the debt. Only 8 percent knew the interest rate on their loan. * * * More than 90 percent of the […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Here. (HT: Gregory Gauthier)
Here (behind paywall, unfortunately). Excerpt: When the CFPB may [issue its arbitration rule] is unknown. A spokesman told Bloomberg BNA that the bureau continues to gather information from stakeholders on the arbitration rulemaking. A final regulation is unlikely to take effect before late 2017 or 2018, Joe Olson, a partner and class action defense specialist with Michael […]
(Also take note of the engaging debate in the Comments.) by Jeff Sovern Every other week, the Sunday Times Business Section runs a column called The Haggler, written by David Segal (who may be better known to law professors as the author of several critical articles on law schools). This week's version is headed A […]
John Y. Campbell of Harvard's Department of Economics has written Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation. Here is the abstract: This lecture considers the case for consumer financial regulation in an environment where many households lack the knowledge to manage their financial affairs effectively. The lecture argues that financial ignorance is pervasive […]
His column is headed Why is the food industry dead set against warning labels? And he has another interesting piece on cell phone scams.
Joel R. Reidenberg of Fordham, Jaspreet Bhatia and Travis Breaux, both of Carnegie Mellon,and Thomas B. Norton also of Fordham have written Automated Comparisons of Ambiguity in Privacy Policies and the Impact of Regulation. Here is the abstract: Website privacy policies often contain ambiguous language that undermines the purpose and value of privacy notices for […]
Former FTC Commissioner Joshua D. Wright, now of George Mason, and John M. Yun of the FTC have written Stop Chug-a-Lug-a-Lugin 5 Miles an Hour on Your International Harvester: How Modern Economics Brings the FTC's Unfairness Analysis Up to Speed with Digital Platforms, 6 George Washington Law Review, 2130 (2015). Here is the abstract: In this […]
Not so much, according to this story in the Boston Herald. Excerpt: [Apparently [buyers are] not [using the disclosures] so much. Bill Emerson, chief executive of Quicken Loans, the country’s second highest volume mortgage lender, says his firm is seeing no surge in shopping by applicants using the Loan Estimate. “I don’t think consumers are changing […]
by Jeff Sovern Bear with me for a moment. As is well-known, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein,in their important book Nudge, describe how classical microeconomics assumes that all people are rational. They call such rational people "Homo Economicus" or, for short, "Econs." But, as they also describe, and as Thaler elaborates on in his […]