by Jeff Sovern I've posted a paper on SSRN, Can Cost-Benefit Analysis Help Consumer Protection Laws? Or at Least Benefit Analysis?, forthcoming in the University of California-Irvine Law Review. Here's the abstract: Cost-benefit analysis is often troubling to consumer advocates. But this article argues that in some circumstances it may help consumers. The article gives […]
Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship
Alexandra D. Lahav of Connecticut has written Symmetry and Class Action Litigation, 60 U.C.L.A.L. Rev.(2013). Here's the abstract: In ordinary litigation, parties often have different resources to devote to their lawsuit. This is a problem because the adversarial system is predicated on two (or more) parties, equal and opposite one another, making their best arguments […]
Paige Marta Skiba of Vanderbilt has written Tax Rebates and the Cycle of Payday Borrowing. Here's the abstract: I use evidence from a $300 tax rebate to test whether receipt of this cash infusion by payday borrowers affects the likelihood of borrowing, loan sizes, or default behavior. Results from fixed-effects models show that the rebate […]
Robin Bradley Kar of Illinois has written The Challenge of Boilerplate, forthcoming in Jotwell. Here's the abstract: Although Margaret Jane Radin is perhaps best known for her work in property theory, she has recently been focusing her formidable intellect on questions of contract. Boilerplate reflects her first book length treatment of these topics, and there […]
Michael Birnhack of Tel Aviv University has written S-M-L-XL Data: Big Data as a New Informational Privacy Paradigm. Here's the abstract: Can informational privacy law survive Big Data? A few scholars have pointed to the inadequacy of the current legal framework to Big Data, especially the collapse of notice and consent, the principles of data […]
Jean Braucher of Arizona haas written Scamming Considered as One of the Exact Sciences: 19th Century American Literature Foreshadows Insights of Behavioral Economics. Here's the abstract: Nineteenth century American literary masters Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain (with co-author Charles Dudley Warner) all examined scamming in their largely pre-regulatory time. These authors made […]
by Jeff Sovern My colleague, Vincent DiLorenzo, has a piece in the New York Law Journal on the CFPB's qualified mortgages regulations.
We are grateful to Professor Kathleen C. Engel of Suffolk University Law School for providing this guest post on the International Association of Consumer Law biannual conference: Every two years, consumer law academics from around the world gather to present their research and discuss their countries’ credit markets and consumer protection laws. This year, the International […]
Daniel J. Solove of George Washington and Woodrow Hartzog of Samford's Cumberland School of Law and Stanford's Center for Internet and Society have written The FTC and the New Common Law of Privacy, forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review. Here's the abstract: One of the great ironies about information privacy law is that the primary regulation […]
M. Ryan Calo of Washington has written Digital Market Manipulation. Here's the abstract: Jon Hanson and Douglas Kysar coined the term “market manipulation” in 1999 to describe how companies exploit the cognitive limitations of consumers. Everything costs $9.99 because consumers see the price as closer to $9 than $10. Although widely cited by academics, the […]