Law Commons^™

Symposium: The Role Of Federal Law In Private Wealth Transfer, Jeffrey Schoenblum

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Increasingly, federal law impacts court decisions involving private wealth transfer. Increasingly, federal law is the central consideration in premortem and postmortem planning for private wealth transfer. Despite this, until recently, little scholarly attention has been paid to this phenomenon; the assumption regarding the centrality of state law, quoted above, having gone largely unquestioned. But now that the "sleeping giant" has awakened, the role that federal law plays in private wealth transfer requires serious and comprehensive academic consideration.

Destructive Federal Preemption Of State Wealth Transfer Law In Beneficiary Designation Cases: Hillman Doubles Down On Egelhoff, John H. Langbein

Vanderbilt Law Review

The probate codes in about a third of the states contain a so-called divorce revocation provision, applicable both to probate and nonprobate transfers. Such statutes address the situation in which a transferor's will or will substitute designates as a beneficiary a person who was the transferor's spouse at the time that the transferor executed the document, but whom the transferor later divorced. The premise of these statutes is that divorce entails a profound change of circumstances not foreseen by the transferor, and that the transferor is unlikely to have intended to benefit an ex-spouse. Accordingly, the intent- implementing purpose of …

Tax Rebates And The Cycle Of Payday Borrowing, Paige Marta Skiba

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

I examine whether receipt of a $300 tax rebate by payday borrowers affects their like- lihood of borrowing, loan size, or default behavior. Results from fixed-effects models show that the rebate decreases the probability of taking out a payday loan in the short run. These impacts are most apparent among credit-constrained, infrequent borrow- ers. Those who take out loans around the time of the rebate borrow amounts typical of their normal borrowing behavior but are more likely to default. Overall, however, the rebate's effects are small and short-lived, suggesting a muted response to this cash windfall in payday borrowing and …

Regulation By Hypothetical, Mehrsa Baradaran

Vanderbilt Law Review

A new paradigm is afoot in banking regulation-and it involves a turn toward the more speculative. Previous regulatory instruments have included geographic restrictions, activity restrictions, disclosure mandates, capital requirements, and risk management oversight to ensure the safety of the banking system. This Article describes and contextualizes these regulatory tools and shows how and why they were formed to deal with industry change. The financial crisis of 2008 exposed the shortcomings in each of these regimes. In important ways, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 ('Dodd-Frank') departs from these past regimes and proposes something new: Call it …

Save Now, Win Later: Removing Statutory Barriers To Prize-Linked Savings Initiatives, Ann E. Watford

Vanderbilt Law Review

In February of 2010, Billie June Smith received exciting news. As the lucky winner of a statewide drawing, this elderly woman was awarded a giant check for $100,000. Billie June's good fortune cost her nothing, for she did not spend any money on the winning ticket. Instead, she became eligible for the grand prize when she decided to save for her retirement at her local credit union. Billie June was the inaugural grand-prize winner of "Save to Win," an innovative pilot program that launched in 2009 to test a concept known as prize-linked savings. In partnership with the nonprofit Doorways …

The Monetary Fifth Column: The Eurodollar Threat To Financial Stability And Economic Sovereignty, Stephen A. Fowler

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Eurodollars are dollar-denominated deposit liabilities of banks outside the United States. Even though estimates of the size of the Eurodollar market exceed $5 trillion, these instruments are virtually unregulated. Legal scholarship has very little to say about Eurodollars, and the economic literature on the subject is geared toward economists and banking professionals rather than policy makers and attorneys. Furthermore, the economic scholarship is focused on describing the way Eurodollar markets function rather than critical examination of their nature and attendant risks. This Note is an attempt to get to the bottom of this ubiquitous yet mysterious financial instrument. It describes …

Dude, Where's My Car Title?: The Law, Behavior, And Economics Of Title Lending Markets, Paige Marta Skiba, Kathryn Fritzdixon, Jim Hawkins

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Millions of credit-constrained borrowers turn to title loans to meet their liquidity needs. Legislatures and regulators have debated how to best regulate these transactions, but surprisingly, we still know very little about the customers who use title loans. This Article reports findings from the first large-scale academic study of title lending customers. We surveyed over 400 title lending customers across three states and obtained information about customers’ demographic and behavioral characteristics.

Based on the results of our survey and guided by insights from behavioral economics, this Article seeks to reframe the title lending debate. Instead of focusing on the risks …