Showing archive for: “CFPB”
Cassandra, the Fear of Overregulation, and the CFPB
In the Huffington Post, Marcus Baram warns against those who claim to be concerned about over-regulation on Wall Street and in the consumer protection sphere. Baram writes: Today, Wall Street is again on the attack against a regulatory overhaul that includes more stringent investor and consumer protections. Though the financial landscape is far different and ... Cassandra, the Fear of Overregulation, and the CFPB
Debiasing: Firms Versus Administrative Agencies
Daniel Kahnemann and co-authors discuss, in the most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review (HT: Brian McCann), various strategies for debiasing individual decisions that impact firm performance. Much of the advice boils down to more conscious deliberation about decisions, incorporating awareness that individuals can be biased into firm-level decisions, and subjecting decisions to more ... Debiasing: Firms Versus Administrative Agencies
Organizing Economists at the CFPB
With the recent announcement of Sendhil Mullainathan as the Assistant Director for Research at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (WSJ profile here), while one turns to the question of how economic input will be incorporated into agency decision-making. Luke Froeb makes a nice point about the organization of economists in administrative agencies: The FTC, which ... Organizing Economists at the CFPB
Comment to the Federal Reserve Board on Regulation II: Where’s the Competitive Impact Analysis?
I have submitted a comment to the Federal Reserve Board concerning Regulation II, along with the American Enterprise Institute’s Alex Brill, Christopher DeMuth, Alex J. Pollock, and Peter Wallison, as well as my George Mason colleague Todd Zywicki. Regulation II implements the interchange fee provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. The comment makes a rather straightforward ... Comment to the Federal Reserve Board on Regulation II: Where’s the Competitive Impact Analysis?
Is The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act of 2010 Constitutional?
C. Boyden Gray and John Shu offer a very helpful discussion on this issue in an article in Engage. Here is the abstract: President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (“Dodd-Frank” or “the Act”) into law on July 21, 2010. The massive and complex Act is reportedly the ... Is The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act of 2010 Constitutional?
The Limits of Behavioral Law and Economics, Australia Edition
At the excellent Core Economics blog, Andreas Ortman discusses an Australian policy debate involving the Review of the Governance, Efficiency, Structure and Operation of Australia’s Superannuation System (also known as the Cooper Review), and more specifically, retirement savings and the superannuation system. The Cooper Review drafters contend that the behavioral economics literature strongly supports a ... The Limits of Behavioral Law and Economics, Australia Edition
Dodd-Frank and Criminal Consumer Protection Liability
Tiffany Joslyn provides a useful summary of the criminal provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act at the Federalist Society National Federal Initiatives Project. One of the things Joslyn points out is that the Act includes new criminal consumer protection liability: Section 1036 makes it a criminal offense for any covered person or service provider to offer ... Dodd-Frank and Criminal Consumer Protection Liability
Ginsburg and Wright on A Taxonomy of Behavioral Law and Economics Skepticism
The behavioral economics research agenda is an ambitious one for several reasons. The first reason is that behavioral economics requires a theory “true” preferences aside from – and in opposition to — the “revealed” preferences of the decision maker. A second reason is that while collecting and documenting individual biases in an ad hoc fashion ... Ginsburg and Wright on A Taxonomy of Behavioral Law and Economics Skepticism
Judd Stone on Behavioral Economics, Administrative Agencies, and Unintended Consequences
Professors Henderson and Ribstein touch on two theoretical failures of the behavioralist movement which both reveal the prematurity of ‘behaviorally-informed’ regulatory proposals: the behavioralist assumptions that (1) behavioral biases theoretically necessitate, or at least enable, public intervention, and (2) governmental entities can net improve individual outcomes over the status quo of unfettered, if limited, human ... Judd Stone on Behavioral Economics, Administrative Agencies, and Unintended Consequences
Tom Brown on Camel Spotting — Is Behavioral Economics Really Beyond Redemption?
At the outset let me thank our hosts for inviting me to participate in what I have come to think of as Truth On The Markets’ annual symposium on topics of particular interest to me. Last year at roughly this same time, TOTM sponsored a symposium on what many surely regarded as an obscure topic, ... Tom Brown on Camel Spotting — Is Behavioral Economics Really Beyond Redemption?
Richard Epstein on The Dangerous Allure of Behavioral Economics: The Relationship between Physical and Financial Products
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, New York University School of Law, The Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, and the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, The University of Chicago. Few academic publications have had as much direct public influence on the law as ... Richard Epstein on The Dangerous Allure of Behavioral Economics: The Relationship between Physical and Financial Products
Ronald Mann on Nudging from Debt
The idea that the regularity of behavioral departures from full rationality justifies regulatory intervention has rarely gained more credence than in the context of consumer finance. The Credit CARD Act of 2009 rests on nothing so much as the supposition that cardholder decisions about spending and repayment reflect systematic misapprehension of the likely patterns of ... Ronald Mann on Nudging from Debt
