Consumers routinely enter into long-term contracts with providers of goods and services - from credit cards, mortgages, cell phones, insurance, TV, and internet services to household appliances, theatre and sports events, health clubs, magazine subscriptions, transportation, and more. Across these consumer markets certain design features of contracts are recurrent, and puzzling. Why do sellers design contracts to provide short-term benefits and impose long-term costs? Why are low introductory prices so common? Why are the contracts themselves so complex, with numerous fees and interest rates, tariffs and penalties? Seduction by Contract explains how consumer contracts emerge from the interaction between market forces and consumer psychology. Consumers are short-sighted and optimistic, so sellers compete to offer short-term benefits, while imposing long-term costs. Consumers are imperfectly rational, so sellers hide the true costs of products and services in complex contracts. Consumers are seduced by contracts that increase perceived benefits, without actually providing more benefits, and decrease perceived costs, without actually reducing the costs that consumers ultimately bear. Competition does not help this behavioural market failure. It may even exacerbate it. Sellers, operating in a competitive market, have no choice but to align contract design with the psychology of consumers. A high-road seller who offers what she knows to be the best contract will lose business to the low-road seller who offers what the consumer mistakenly believes to be the best contract. Put bluntly, competition forces sellers to exploit the biases and misperceptions of their customers. Seduction by Contract argues that better legal policy can help consumers and enhance market efficiency. Disclosure mandates provide a promising avenue for regulatory intervention. Simple, aggregate disclosures can help consumers make better choices. Comprehensive disclosures can facilitate the work of intermediaries, enabling them to better advise consumers. Effective disclosure would expose the seductive nature of consumer contracts and, as a result, reduce sellers' incentives to write inefficient contracts. Developing its explanation through a general framework and detailed case studies of three major consumer markets (credit cards, mortgages, and cell phones), Seduction by Contract is an accessible introduction to the law and economics of consumer contracts, and a powerful critique of current regulatory policy.

Anatomy of a Meltdown: A Dual Financial Biography of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, traces the course of two financial icons, Lehman Brothers and WaMu—one operating in the investment sector, the other in the consumer financial services sector—on their path to financial ruin. Illuminating the nature and severity of the subprime mortgage crisis, author Michael P. Malloy presents a clear and cogent analysis of the global economic meltdown, the steps necessary to restore the financial markets, and measures that must be taken to avoid similar crises in the future. This clear and concise text by one of the foremost authorities on bank regulation features: comprehensive coverage of all of the fundamental law, policy, and practical issues raised by the crisis and the government's response to it the core of key cases preserved in timely and salient excerpts a balanced policy perspective step-by-step, highly readable analysis of the practical and policy implications of the subprime mortgage crisis the author's cutting-edge web log that offers continuously updated supplemental material generous use of examples throughout the text effective use of visual aids to illustrate concepts and spark class discussion Anatomy of a Meltdown: A Dual Financial Biography of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, by Michael P. Malloy tells the story of the financial meltdown that swept through American and international markets, threatening to plunge the United States into depression as Wall Street and the global economy faced near-total collapse.

This book offers a commentary on the responses to white collar crime since the financial crisis. The book brings together experts from academia and practice to analyse the legal and policy responses that have been put in place following the 2008 financial crisis. The book looks at a range of topics including: the low priority and resources allocated to fraud; EU regulatory efforts to fight financial crime; protecting whistleblowers in the financial industry; the criminality of the rogue trader; the evolution of financial crime in cryptocurrencies; and the levying of financial penalties against banks and corporations by the US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was created to "examine the causes of the current financial and economic crisis in the U.S." In this report, the Commission presents the results of its examination and its conclusions as to the causes of the crisis. More than two years after the worst of the financial crisis, our economy continues to experience the aftershocks. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes, and the economy is still struggling to rebound. This report is intended to provide a historical accounting of what brought our financial system and economy to a precipice and to help policy makers and the public better understand how this calamity came to be. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand report.