Vanderbilt Ph.D. student Kathryn Fritzdixon, Jim Hawkins of Houston, & Paige Marta Skiba of Vanderbilt have writtetn Dude, Where's My Car Title?: The Law, Behavior, and Economics of Title Lending Markets. Here's the abstract: Millions of credit-constrained borrowers turn to title loans to meet their liquidity needs. Legislatures and regulators have debated how to best […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Dalie Jimenez of Connecticut, James Greiner of Harvard, Lois R. Lupica of Maine, & Rebecca L. Sandefur of the American Bar Foundationand Illinois have written Using a Randomized Control Trial to Accomplish Multiple Goals: An RCT Evaluating What Works for Individuals in Financial Distress, Investigating the Debt Collection System, Exploring Ways to Increase Access to […]
Ariel Porat of Tel Aviv University and Chicago and Lior Strahilevitz of Chicago have written Personalizing Default Rules and Disclosure with Big Data. Here's the abstract: This paper provides the first comprehensive account of personalized default rules and personalized disclosure in the law. Under a personalized approach to default rules, individuals are assigned default terms […]
by Jeff Sovern Today's Times Haggler column, Calling Out the Robocaller, written by David Segal, and about a troublesome telemarketer, Your Financial Ladder, operated by the Helfenstines, includes an ominous discussion about the effectiveness of a Florida consumer protection agency: [A] spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services says it recently started an investigation […]
The University of Connecticut School of Law announces a writing competition for junior legal scholars, called the 2013 Junior Scholars Workshop on Financial Services Law. The competition is open to law faculty with less than six years of teaching experience. The competition is open only to papers that explore topics in financial services law. Appropriate […]
by Jeff Sovern Javelin Strategy & Research has issued its annual report on identity fraud (a free version is available here). Javelin reports that 12.6 million Americans–or more than 5%–were victims of identity fraud in 2012, an increase of a million from 2011. It also states that nearly a quarter of consumers who received data breach […]
Here's an excerpt from the announcement: Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it is gathering information to develop options for policymakers to make repayment of private student loans more manageable for struggling borrowers. The CFPB has found that private student loan borrowers who wish to pay their loans, but face high payments, […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. The first two sentences say: The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has told at least four banks that it may sue them over vehicle loans and interest-rate markups by auto dealers that appear discriminatory, according to three people briefed on the matter. The banks received letters from the CFPB last week […]
Politico puts out an often-interesting email newsletter, titled Morning Money, every weekday. This morning's edition quoted "a person close to" Senator Elizabeth Warren as saying the following: 'It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that the large banks would have more ground to stand on with Elizabeth if they figured out a way to […]
More here. His work informed my writing and the work of countless others, and as it happens, as an undergraduate, I was fortunate enough to take a class with him .