David A. Skeel Jr. of NYU, Penn, and the European Corporate Governance Institute has written Behavioralism in Finance and Securities Law. Here is the abstracgt: In this Essay, I take stock (as something of an outsider) of the behavioral economics movement, focusing in particular on its interaction with traditional cost-benefit analysis and its implications for […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern As I have noted before, payday lending and deposit advances present a conundrum for me: how to permit those who genuinely have a short-term borrowing need and who can't get the money elsewhere to borrow without creating a long-term debt trap. Recently I listened to hearing held by the Senate Special Committee […]
by Jeff Sovern I figure if it's good enough for the CFPB, it's good enough for us: I'm part of a team, along with other professors and the Hugh L Carey Center for Dispute Resolution here at the Law School, that is crafting a survey on consumer understanding of arbitration clauses. Unlike the CFPB survey, […]
Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius of the Institute for Information Law (University of Amsterdam) has written Consent to Behavioural Targeting in European Law – What are the Policy Implications of Insights from Behavioural Economics? Here is the abstract: Behavioural targeting is the monitoring of people’s online behaviour to target advertisements to specific individuals. European law requires […]
From time to time, news media run a story on car repair outfits that cheat consumers. Unfortunately, there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of such businesses, perhaps because most consumers lack the ability to determine if they are being ripped off by their mechanics. You can find another such story here.
Quinn Curtis of Virginia has written State Foreclosure Laws and Mortgage Origination in the Subprime Market, forthcoming in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. Here's the abstract: Foreclosure procedures in some states are considerably swifter and less costly for lenders than in others. In light of the foreclosure crisis, an empirical understanding of […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. The article reports on the case on which we previously blogged in which a woman won an $18.6 million verdict under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. And it provides more support for the reforms Ira Rheingold and I argued for in our recent Times op-ed: requiring credit bureaus to be more […]
Jeff Gelles has the story here. Maybe it's just as well that Sovereign Bank is changing its name to Santander; I wouldn't want to be confused with them.
by Jeff Sovern Sovereign Bank is changing its name to Santander, but I have decided not to change my name to Jeff Santander. I'm rather attached to my last name, which family lore claims came about when my grandfather and his three brothers decided to anglicize the family name. Previously, we had been the Smiths. […]