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CONSUMER LAW ABSTRACTS"Just Keep My Money! Supporting Tax-Time Savings with US Savings Bonds"
PETER TUFANO, Harvard Business School, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) This paper reports the results of a 2007 experiment testing if specific process simplification can enhance savings by low-to-moderate income (LMI) households. Tax refund recipients at certain H&R Block (Block) tax preparation offices were given the option to purchase U.S. Savings Bonds in addition to existing Block savings products. The fraction of filers who did any savings at the tax-site was 8.5 times higher at these treatment sites offering bonds (7.05%) than at control sites where bonds were not available (0.74%). Even after controlling for filers' demographic factors and self-revealed savings intent, the likelihood of tax-site savings was 5.5 percentage points higher at treatment sites as compared with control sites. In contrast to the take up of many financial products, the rate of bond purchases by less well-to-do families was no lower, and in some cases was higher than for more well-to-do filers. Also, more than 63% of the treatment group savers were individuals who could be deemed to be "asset poor". Bond buyers were more likely than other tax-site savers to have "family-centered" savings goals (i.e., saving for education and/or children/family), were more likely to be married or heads of household, and were more likely to have more dependents. A large majority (69%) of all bond purchasers also bought bonds for others, in effect, "gifting" savings. These results demonstrate that simplification can have an impact on savings rates, that there is substantial additional potential for intra-family gifting, and that simple changes in tax "plumbing" may enhance savings. "'Groping Along...Between Things Real and Things Personal' A New Hermeneutic of Fixtures under UCC 9-334"
MARC LANE ROARK, University of Missouri School of Law What are the defining characteristics of fixtures under the Uniform Commercial Code? Since the Code's inception, courts have interpreted the fixtures definition as incorporating state law on fixtures. Even after drafters revised the definition away from an explicit incorporation of state realty law, courts continued to interpret the provision as if no change were made. This Article argues that the doctrinal development of fixtures, the drafting attempts to define fixtures provisions, and the current version of 9-334 articulate a definition of fixtures tied to attachment. In reaching that conclusion, the Article proposes a new hermeneutical reading of 9-334 focusing on (1) the doctrinal movement of fixtures to third-party interests; (2) the inference of meaning found in changes to the fixtures provisions; (3) the lack of discernable intent by the drafters either from the comments or other materials; and (4) a reading of 9-334 that concludes meaning from the provisions, rather than one that redacts meaning depending on the definitional base. "Predatory Mortgage Lending"
PHILIP BOND, University of Pennsylvania - Finance Department Regulators express growing concern over predatory loans, which the authors take to mean loans that borrowers should decline. Using a model of consumer credit in which such lending is possible, they identify the circumstances in which it arises both with and without competition. The authors find that predatory lending is associated with highly collateralized loans, inefficient refinancing of subprime loans, lending without due regard to ability to pay, prepayment penalties, balloon payments, and poorly informed borrowers. Under most circumstances competition among lenders attenuates predatory lending. They use their model to analyze the effects of legislative interventions. "Bankruptcy Reform and Foreclosures"
DAVID P. BERNSTEIN, affiliation not provided to SSRN The Bankruptcy Abuse and Protection Act (BAPCPA) (2005) by making it more difficult and costly for marginal homeowners to utilize the bankruptcy code, restructure their debts, and maintain mortgage payments, increased foreclosures and the number of homes for sale. BAPCPA was intended to help creditors at the expense of debtors. However, the negative impact of BAPCPA on real estate markets appears to have damaged the balance sheets of both debtors and creditors. | |||||||||
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Solicitation of Abstracts
The Consumer Law Journal publishes abstracts of working papers, forthcoming articles, recently published articles, books, legislative reports, conferences, and other publications that address issues of interest to consumer law scholars and practitioners. Coverage includes legal issues pertaining to advertising, consumer reporting (including credit repair organizations), discrimination (including redlining), consumer disclosure (such as the Truth in Lending Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, and consumer leasing), consumer fraud (including issues arising under the Federal Trade Commission Act, state UDAP statutes, odometer laws, referral sales, and bait and switch statutes), unconscionability, standard form contracts, consumer privacy (including telemarketing, spam, spyware, phishing, direct mail, financial privacy, common law privacy torts in consumer transactions, and online privacy), identity theft, data protection, cooling off rules (including door to door sales regulation), payment systems (such as credit and debit cards, internet payment issues, stored value cards (including gift cards and phone cards), and electronic transfers), warranties (including UCC warranties, lemon laws, and the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act), consumer product safety, commercial speech doctrine, debt collection, repossession, predatory lending (including asset-based lending, equity stripping, flipping, balloon payments, negative amortization, loan packing, rate-risk disparities and yield-spread premiums), payday lending, usury, credit insurance, electronic shopping (including electronic signatures and records, formation of contracts, and payments), the holder in due course regulation, mortgages, student loans, repossession, foreclosure, regulation that pertains to consumer markets and enforcement of consumer laws (including class actions, preemption, arbitration, administrative enforcement, small claims courts and attorney's fees). The journal does not cover landlord-tenant issues or criminal law. The journal welcomes a broad range of methodological approaches, including conventional doctrinal analyses, law and economics approaches, historical discussions, socio-legal analyses, law and society approaches, discussions of consumer psychology that bear on legal issues, international law analyses and comparative law approaches.
Distribution ServicesIf your Institution is interested in learning more about increasing readership for its research by becoming a Partner in Publishing or starting a Research Paper Series, please email: Management@SSRN.com. Distributed by:DirectorsLSN SUBJECT MATTER EJOURNALS BERNARD S. BLACK RONALD J. GILSON Please contact us at the above addresses with your comments, questions or suggestions for LSN-Sub. Advisory BoardConsumer Law RICHARD M. ALDERMAN JEAN BRAUCHER MARK ELLIOTT BUDNITZ MICHAEL M. GREENFIELD ALVIN C. HARRELL CREOLA JOHNSON DEE PRIDGEN IAIN D.C. RAMSAY RALPH J. ROHNER NORMAN I. SILBER
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