Contributing to the literature on the consequences of behavioral biases for market outcomes and institutional design, we contrast producer liability and minimum quality standard regulation as alternative means of social control of product-related torts when consumers are heterogeneously...

This paper, an edited and footnoted transcript of a presentation at a research Centre of Excellence at Hokkaido University, looks at the influence of “responsive regulation” theory on the large-scale “Australian Consumer Law” reforms enacted in 2010. It outlines some frameworks developed...

This Essay, prepared as a contribution to the 2009 NYU Annual Survey of American Law Symposium on Preemption and Tort Law, takes issue with the standard position in the law and economics literature that substantive consumer-protection rules should not be used to redistribute wealth. Models of...

This paper offers a comparative critique of one of the few aspects of the new Australian Consumer Law (ACL) that had no counterpart in prior domestic or New Zealand law. ACL Part 3-3 Div 5 belatedly adds a new obligation on suppliers to notify regulators of certain consumer product related...

This paper will describe the drafting history of the Principles of the Law of Software Contracts, with particular attention to the extent of consumer and public-interest group representation in the process. The drafting process, I will argue, did not take adequate stock of problems identified in...

Consumers in wealthy countries like the U.S. and Japan usually know what they want, and how to obtain it. In such markets, the sellers who thrive should tend to be those who offer consumers the level of safety they want -- no matter what the law might be. For the most part, U.S. data confirm...

The consumer movement in the 1960s was the first step towards creating community demand for laws providing for the protection of consumers. Australia responded with consumer protection laws in the 1970s, and with unfair contract laws in the 1980s at the state level, since replaced by...

This paper describes the incentives for firms to seek voluntary product safety certifications. We consider a firm which makes the decision of whether or not to seek certification prior to selling the product. We show that, even when the firm and the consumers have same beliefs about the product...

This article focuses on the critical importance to consumer protection of the “dynamic duo” of state and private enforcement mechanisms provided in state unfair and deceptive acts or practices (UDAP) statutes. The article begins by chronicling the origins of these state laws, rooted in a...