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Full-Text Articles in Law
Financial Reform: Making The System Safer And Fairer, Michael S. Barr
Financial Reform: Making The System Safer And Fairer, Michael S. Barr
Articles
In the fall of 2008, the financial crisis crushed the U.S. economy and plunged the country into the Great Recession. The crisis shuttered American businesses, cost millions of Americans their jobs, and wiped out home values and household savings. The macro effects hit hardest and were the longest lasting for those least able to bear the brunt of the crisis. It was devastating to middle-income families and perhaps even more so to low- and moderate-income households, who had little financial buffer (Barr 2012a). Financial stability, never robust for these families, dropped precipitously (Barr and Schaffa 2016). Both in the United …
Behaviorally Informed Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
Behaviorally Informed Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
Book Chapters
Policy makers typically approach human behavior from the perspective of the rational agent model, which relics on normativc, a priori analyses. The model assumes people make insightful, well-planned, highly controlled, and calculated decisions guided by considerations of personal utility. This perspective is promoted in the social sciences and in professional schools and has come to dominate much of the formulation and conduct of policy. An alternative view, developed mostly through empirical behavioral research, and the one we will articulate here, provides a substantially difierent perspective on individual behavior and its policy and regulatory implications. According to the empirical perspective, behavior …
Ability To Pay, John A. E. Pottow
Ability To Pay, John A. E. Pottow
Articles
The landmark Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 ("Dodd-Frank") transforms the regulation of consumer credit in the United States. Many of its changes have been high-profile, attracting considerable media and scholarly attention, most notably the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). Even specific consumer reforms, such as a so-called "plain vanilla" proposal, drew hot debate and lobbying firepower. But when the dust settled, one profoundly transformative innovation that did not garner the same outrage as plain vanilla or the CFPB did get into the law: imposing upon lenders a duty to assure a borrower's ability to repay. Ensuring a borrower's …
The Case For Behaviorally Informed Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
The Case For Behaviorally Informed Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
Book Chapters
Policymakers approach human behavior largely through the perspective of the “rational agent” model, which relies on normative, a priori analyses of the making of rational decisions. This perspective is promoted in the social sciences and in professional schools, and has come to dominate much of the formulation and conduct of policy. An alternative view, developed mostly through empirical behavioral research, provides a substantially different perspective on individual behavior and its policy implications. Behavior, according to the empirical perspective, is the outcome of perceptions, impulses, and other processes that characterize the impressive machinery that we carry behind the eyes and between …
An Opt-Out Home Mortgage System, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
An Opt-Out Home Mortgage System, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
Other Publications
The current housing and financial crisis has led to significant congressional and executive action to manage the crisis and stem the harms from it, but the fundamental problems that caused the crisis remain largely unaddressed. The central features of the industrial organization of the mortgage market with its misaligned incentives, and the core psychological and behavioral phenomena that drive household financial decisionmaking remain. While the causes of the mortgage meltdown are myriad and the solutions likely to be multifaceted, a central problem that led to the crisis was that brokers and lenders offered loans that looked much less expensive and …
Issue Brief: Overcoming Legal Barriers To The Bulk Sale Of At-Risk Mortgages, Michael S. Barr, James A. Feldman
Issue Brief: Overcoming Legal Barriers To The Bulk Sale Of At-Risk Mortgages, Michael S. Barr, James A. Feldman
Other Publications
This memorandum argues that the sale of loans and loan pools to new owners would help to stabilize housing prices, and that such a modification to the REMIC rules would be desirable and well within Congress’ constitutional authority. Furthermore, it would not lead to successful legal claims by investors in securitized loan pools under the Just Compensation or Due Process clauses, which provide the primary constitutional protections for property interests.
Behaviorally Informed Financial Services Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
Behaviorally Informed Financial Services Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
Other Publications
Financial services decisions can have enourmous consequences for household well-being. Households need a range of financial services - to conduct basic transactions, such as receiving their income, storing it, and paying bills; to save for emergency needs and long-term goals; to access credit; and to insure against life's key risks. But the financial services system is exceedingly complicated and often not well-designed to optimize house-hold behavior. In response to the complexity of out financial system, there has been a long running debate about the appropriate role and form of regulation. Regulation is largely stuck in two competing models - disclosure, …
Financial Details, Kent Memorial, Edwin C. Goddard
Financial Details, Kent Memorial, Edwin C. Goddard
Articles
The following is a statement, with such details as I should think would answer the purposes of other chapters, of the ways and means adopted for securing the present building just completed at Ann Arbor.
The Lien Or Equitable Theory Of The Mortgage--Some Generalizations, Edgar N. Durfee
The Lien Or Equitable Theory Of The Mortgage--Some Generalizations, Edgar N. Durfee
Articles
The question is--What is the nature of the rights of a real property mortgagee in those jurisdictions which adopt the lien or equitable theory3 of the mortgage? In one sense this question calls for a full statement of the law of mortgages but that, of course, is not the sense in which the writer puts it. He means by it to put a broader and more scientific question--a question, be it at once confessed, of jurisprudence--yet a question which has an important bearing on, if it is not in fact conclusive of, several specific problems in the law, which will …