The Conversation has an interesting piece titled Store credit cards generate corporate profits and disgruntled workers, by a pair of sociology professors, Joya Misra and Kyla Walters. Excerpt: Major apparel companies also sell credit, often with very high fees, like The Gap’s 21.7% starting interest rate, and US$27 to $37 late payment charge. In 2019, […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Meirav Furth of UCLA and Tel-Aviv University has written Retail Race Discrimination. Here's the abstract: This Article investigates everyday race discrimination while shopping in clothing stores of different price ranges. It reports on an original field experiment which examines the combined effects of race and gender on consumers’ shopping experiences and outcomes. Nineteen testers—Black and white […]
Or click here.
by Jeff Sovern Probably my favorite podcast is Ballard Spahr's Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast. I learn a tremendous amount from it. Yes, it favors the industry view, as it is certainly entitled to do, but many episodes are devoted to interviewing consumer advocates as well. If you don't listen to it, and you like this […]
Here, from the Edelson firm. Or click below
by Jeff Sovern Here. That's consistent with Elizabeth Warren's position that the government shouldn't make money on student loans. I wonder what incentives it would create.
We have been asked to post the following: CLASS Network Director Do you want to work every day to advance the rights of low-income consumers? Do you want to lead a national network of law school programs dedicated to building racial and economic justice? Well, then, perhaps this is the job for you. […]
by Jeff Sovern The CFPB has lately been up in arms over credit card late fees. Late fees and many other fees are troubling because it is likely that consumers don't think about them when choosing their credit cards. Classical economics presupposes that consumers will make optimal decisions if they know what prices they will […]
Guest post from Neil Sobol: Howdy consumer law colleagues: This posting requests information to help update my survey on consumer laws offerings in law school. In an August 2020 blog, I forwarded a chart created by my research assistant. The chart was part of a project to update the consumer law offerings chart reported in […]
Here. It doesn't mean there won't be targeted loan forgiveness or changes in the IDR program, but so far, it looks as if widespread cancellation (e.g., $50,000 per borrower is not something the president is pushing).