This book provides a comparative appraisal of global developments in the area of consumer bankruptcy and overindebtedness.

Consumer Bankruptcy and over-indebtedness is an emerging field throughout the world. This book provides a comparative appraisal of global developments in this area. It is one of the first book length publications focusing on comparative consumer bankruptcy and over-indebtedness. It combines theoretical and empirical studies of bankruptcy regimes and consumer credit in civilian and common law jurisdictions as well as exploring current reform trends. The book will be of interest to academics, policymakers and law reformers as well as to practitioners.

Bankruptcy in America is a booming business, with hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans filing for bankruptcy each year. Is this dramatic growth a result of mushrooming debt or does it reflect a moral decline that permits the middle class to evade their debts? As We Forgive Our Debtors addresses these questions with hard empirical data drawn from bankruptcy court filings. The authors of this multidisciplinary study describe the law and the statistics in clear, nontechnical language, combining a thorough statistical description of the social and economic position of consumer bankrupts with human portraits of the debtors and creditors whose journeys have ended in bankruptcy court. Book jacket.

Excessive household debt has allowed for economic growth, but this model has become increasingly unstable. Spooner examines bankruptcy law as a potential solution.

In response to growing interest in household finance, this collection of essays with a foreword by John Y. Campbell, studies household and consumer use of credit instruments. It shows how individual consumers and households utilize various credit alternatives in managing their consumption and savings and suggests areas for future research.

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging market and developing economies. During the current wave, which started in 2010, the increase in debt in these economies has already been larger, faster, and broader-based than in the previous three waves. Current low interest rates mitigate some of the risks associated with high debt. However, emerging market and developing economies are also confronted by weak growth prospects, mounting vulnerabilities, and elevated global risks. A menu of policy options is available to reduce the likelihood that the current debt wave will end in crisis and, if crises do take place, will alleviate their impact.

This is a truly international effort, and one with a strong commitment to human rights by the highly reputable authors coming from different jurisdictions! The many facets of today s consumer law are presented to the reader, including developing countries a fascinating effort in a dynamically emerging field of law! We are comprehensively informed about such bread and butter areas as advertising, unfair terms, consumer guarantees, product safety and liability, consumer credit, and redress. But traditional consumer law concepts and remedies are facing challenges in more complex areas, like services of general internet where consumers and private users should enjoy equal access to universal services , with the internet where speed must not be a pretext to eliminate standards of fair dealing, with risky investment services under the problematic paradigm shift from investor protection to investor confidence . A book to read, to think about, to work with for everybody interested in the future of consumer markets and law in a time of economic crisis! Norbert Reich, University of Bremen, Germany This is a richly interesting collection of essays, written by leading names in the field. It offers a thoroughly reliable survey of key tensions and challenges in modern consumer law and brilliantly combines thematic overview with detailed analysis. It will stimulate comparative thinking, it will provide a source of information and it will be welcomed by consumer law scholars all over the world. Stephen Weatherill, University of Oxford, UK Consumer law and policy has emerged in the last half-century as a major policy concern for all nations. This Handbook of original contributions provides an international and comparative analysis of central issues in consumer law and policy in developed and developing economies. The Handbook encompasses questions of both social policy and effective business regulation. Many of the issues are common to all countries and are becoming increasingly globalised due to the growth in international trade and technological developments such as the Internet. The authors provide a broad coverage of both substantive topics and institutional questions concerning optimal approaches to enforcement and the role of class actions in consumer policy. It also includes comparative insights into the influential EU and US models of consumer law and relates consumer law to contemporary trends in human rights law. Written by a carefully selected group of international experts, this text represents an authoritative resource for understanding contemporary and future developments in consumer law. This Handbook will provide students, researchers and policymakers with an insight to the main policy debates in each context and provide models of legal regulation to assist in the evaluation of laws and the development of consumer law and policy.

A Debtor World contains a collection of contributions about the societal implications of private debt. The essays comprising this volume are authored by dozens of leading U.S. and international academics who have written about debt or issues related to debt in a wide range of disciplines including law, sociology, psychology, history, economics, and more. The goal of this collection is to explore debt neither as a problem nor a solution but as a phenomenon and to promote the exchange of knowledge to better comprehend why consumers and businesses decide to borrow money. It asks what happens to businesses and consumers under a heavy debt load, and what legal norms and institutions societies need to encourage the efficient use of debt while promoting a greater understanding of the global phenomenon of increased indebtedness and societal dependence.

Since the adoption of the EU Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings in 2000 and its recast in 2015, it has become clear that lawyers engaged in consumer insolvency proceedings are increasingly expected to have a basic understanding of foreign insolvency proceedings, as well as knowledge of the foreign country's court and legal system, legislation and judicial practice. Written by 50 highly qualified insolvency experts from 30 European countries, A Guide to Consumer Insolvency Proceedings in Europe provides the necessary information in the largest, most up-to-date and comprehensive book on this topic. Assisting the readers in their navigation through the differences, similarities, and peculiarities of insolvency proceedings in all Member States of the European Union, Switzerland and Russia, this book is a unique guide to insolvency proceedings across Europe. With contributions by both academics and practitioners, it provides truly multinational coverage of the economic, legal, social, political, and demographic issues in consumer insolvency. Illustrating the numerous practices across Europe, this book allows the reader to evaluate each aspect both on its own merits, as well as in comparison to the approaches applied in other European jurisdictions. This book will be an invaluable tool for insolvency practitioners, judges, lawyers, creditors and debtors throughout Europe, especially those participating in cross-border proceedings.