Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Publication
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Vertical Boilerplate, James Gibson
Vertical Boilerplate, James Gibson
James Gibson
Despite what we learn in law school about the “meeting of the minds,” most contracts are merely boilerplate -- take-it-or-leave-it propositions. Negotiation is nonexistent; we rely on our collective market power as consumers to regulate contracts’ content. But boilerplate imposes certain information costs, because it often arrives late in the transaction and is hard to understand. If those costs get too high, then the market mechanism fails. So how high are boilerplate’s information costs? A few studies have attempted to measure them, but they all use a “horizontal” approach -- i.e., they sample a single stratum of boilerplate and assume …
Barriers To Market Discipline: A Comparative Study Of Regulatory Reforms, Vincent Di Lorenzo
Barriers To Market Discipline: A Comparative Study Of Regulatory Reforms, Vincent Di Lorenzo
Vincent Di Lorenzo
Barriers to Market Discipline: A Comparative Study of Mortgage Market Reforms This article explores regulatory reforms in the U.S. and U.K. in response to the recent mortgage market crisis. These reform efforts serve as case studies for evaluation of necessary reforms being considered in many nations. Two issues are examined. First, the article explores the extent to which regulatory bodies have recognized behavioral barriers to market discipline on the part of both consumers and industry actors. The academic literature has long identified such barriers, but recognition by government regulators has lagged. Second the article examines the varied response in the …