Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

Simplified Food Labels

by Jeff Sovern Mark Bittman has an interesting column in today’s Times, My Dream Food Label, describing how his ideal food label would use traffic lights–green, yellow, or red– to signal qualities such as the healthfulness of the food.  Though Bittman doesn’t mention the health department restaurant grading system, which uses letter grades, it’s a […]

Oren Bar-Gill: Seduction by Contract

Oren Bar-Gill has written Seduction by Contract: Law, Economics and Psychology in Consumer Markets (Oxford University Press 2012).  The Introduction is available here. Here's the abstract: Consumers routinely enter into contracts with providers of goods and services. These contracts are designed by sophisticated sellers to exploit the psychological biases of consumers. They provide short-term benefits, while imposing […]

Paper on Contract Law and the Subprime Crisis

Chunlin Leonhard of Loyola University New Orleans has written The Subprime Mortgage Crisis and Economic Checks and Balances, Banking & Financial Services Policy Report, June 2012, at 15.  Here's the abstract: This article examines contract law’s role in the subprime mortgage crisis, specifically in the way that the laissez faire paradigm of traditional contract law […]

President to Nominate Joshua Wright to FTC

You can read a New York Law Journal report here.  Wright is a professor at George Mason.  The article highlights his devotion to Chicago-school economics and reports that he rejects the use of behavioral economics in antitrust. The article also opines that if Governor Romney wins the presidency, Wright would be a potential FTC Chairman. […]

Paper on Forum Shopping in Debt Collection

Judith L. Fox of Notre Dame has written How Forum Determines Substance in Judicial Debt Collection, 31 Banking and Financial Services Rev. 11 (August 2012). Here's the abstract: In an email to the Small Claims Task Force, a committee appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court to investigate allegations of abuse in the Marion County Small […]

Former FDIC Head Sheila Bair on the CFPB

Bair has a new book out, and so has been the subject of some media attention.  CNN/Money interviewed her and among the questions was an exchange about the CFPB.  Her reply:  I support the Bureau, and I also strongly endorse it in the book.  And I think they’re doing a good job.  I am, if […]

Paper on the Oldest Financial Institution

Paige Marta Skiba of Vanderbilt, Marieke Bos of Stockholm University – Swedish Institute for Social Research and Susan Carter of the United States Military Academy have written The Pawn Industry and Its Customers: The United States and Europe.  Here's the abstract: As humankind’s oldest financial institution, pawnbroking has served the financial needs of low-income families […]