Lauren E. Willis of Loyola Los Angeles, always a thoughtful writer, has authored When Nudges Fail: Slippery Defaults. Here's the abstract: Inspired by the success of “automatic enrollment” in increasing participation in defined contribution retirement savings plans, policymakers have put similar policy defaults in place in a variety of other contexts, from checking account overdraft […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Vicki Been of NYU, Howell E. Jackson of Harvard, and Mark A. Willis of NYU have written Essay: Sticky Seconds – The Problems Second Liens Pose to the Resolution of Distressed Mortgages. Here's the abstract: Almost five years into the foreclosure crisis, policymakers, the mortgage industry, consumers and taxpayers all express disappointment over the slow […]
by Jeff Sovern I have been listening to the audio version of Dan Areily's book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, and it may shed some light on consumer protection. Ariely explores the causes and limits of dishonesty. He reports on a series of experiments that suggest that many people cheat a little, but not so […]
by Jeff Sovern A fellow named Eric Grover had a piece atacking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Washington Times this week titled "CFPB’s unchecked power." A line at the end of the essay explains "Eric Grover is a principal at Intrepid Ventures." I had never heard of Intrepid Ventures, but their web site […]
by Jeff Sovern We have blogged many times about the Republican call for the CFPB to have a commission-structure, rather than a director (see, for example, here). That call has been spearheaded by Senator Shelby. So that makes it all the more surprising to note that during the Senate's consideration of what became the Dodd-Frank […]
Myriam E. Gilles of Cardozo has written Killing Them with Kindness: ‘Consumer-Friendly’ Arbitration Clauses after AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, forthcoming in Notre Dame Law Review. Herer’s the abstract: In AT&T v. Concepcion, the Supreme Court struck California’s so-called “Discover Bank rule” – a judge-made rule providing that arbitration agreements attended by class action waivers are […]
Here is a report on the pain involved in satisfying the "undue hardship" standard for discharging student loans in bankruptcy and here is a story about the case Scott Michelman blogged about earlier this week addressing debt collector liability for misleading borrowers about the dischargeability of student loans.
Daniel Schwarcz of Minnesota has written Transparently Opaque: Understanding the Lack of Transparency in Insurance Consumer Protection. Here's the abstract: Consumer protection in most domains of financial regulation centers on transparency. Broadly construed, transparency involves making relevant information available to consumers as well as others who might act on their behalf, such as academics, journalists, […]