Conference Description: Advances in behavioral economics raise serious doubt about the ability of individuals to make choices that will work to their benefit over the long term. Nevertheless, none of these lessons has been used to reassess the legal rules designed to protect individual consumers, legal rules that in some cases have remained essentially unchanged for more than a century. Taking stock is all the more important now given the recent technological revolutions in credit markets that have made it possible for individuals to borrow on a scale never before seen in human history. Today, American consumers have more than $1.5 trillion in unused lines of credit at their disposal and file for bankruptcy at twice the rate of only 10 years ago. What the laws are doing or even whether they are doing too much or too little remains unexplored. This conference will explore a broad set of issues involving consumer choice over time, with particular reference to credit markets.

The John M. Olin Program in Law & Economics will be hosting this event at the Law School. See http://www.law.uchicago.edu/Lawecon/events.html for more details.