Paolina C. Medina of Texas A&M University and Jose L. Negrin of the Banco de Mexico have written The Hidden Role of Contract Terms: Evidence from Credit Card Minimum Payments in Mexico, Management Science (2021). Here is the abstract: This paper argues that thresholds in financial contracts act as implicit nudges in consumers’ decisions. Exploiting […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
The American Economic Association has a report on the study here. The actual paper, Is No News (Perceived As) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure by Ginger Zhe Jin, Michael Luca, & Daniel Martin, is here. Here's the abstract: This paper uses laboratory experiments to directly test a central prediction of disclosure theory: that […]
by Jeff Sovern I have a suggestion for the CFPB relating to arbitration. Many readers will know this background, but for those who don't: in 2010, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Act, which in section 1028 directed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to study arbitration. The statute also authorized the Bureau to regulate consumer financial arbitration […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. [Disclosure: the website is put up by AAJ, which gave St. John's a grant to fund some of my research back in 2015]
by Jeff Sovern Blankenstein's essay appears in the National Review. Bureau-watchers may recall that Blankenstein served as an associate director at the Bureau during the Trump administration but left after a rebellion over blog posts he had written a decade earlier questioning whether use of the n-word is racist, among other things. Here's the opening […]
Here. This really brings home how mortgage debt compares to other consumer debts.
Andrew Gilden of Willamette has written Endorsing After Death, 63 William & Mary Law Review (2022).Here's the abstract: An endorsement is an act of giving one’s public support to a person, product, service, or cause; accordingly, it might seem impossible for someone to make an endorsement after they have died. Nevertheless, posthumous endorsements have become […]
Here. The House is expected to follow suit, and the White House has indicated that the president would sign the repeal resolution.
Michael Simkovic of USC and Meirav Furth of UCLA have written Proportional Contracts, 107 Iowa Law Review, (2021). Here's the abstract: Contract law treats consumer attention as if it were unlimited. We instead view consumer attention as a scarce resource that must be conserved. We argue that consumer contracts generate negative externalities by overwhelming consumers with […]
Prentiss Cox of Minnesota and Christopher Lewis Peterson of Utah have written Public Compensation for Public Enforcement, 39 Yale Journal on Regulation (2022). Here's the abstract: Public enforcement actions frequently result in the distribution of money to people affected by violation of market protection laws. This “public compensation” returns billions of dollars to consumers, investors, and […]