Those that backed the 2005 bankruptcy reform law argued that it would protect creditors from consumer abuse and lack of financial responsibility. The substantial increase in the number of bankruptcies over the last decade combined with the perception of system-wide abuse apparently convinced...

Granting collateral to secure loans is a prominent feature of the U.S. economy, but, surprisingly, we do not understand how borrowers and lenders decide whether to engage in a secured or an unsecured transaction. In this Article, Professor Mann argues that existing theories of secured lending...

The traditional perspective holds that large firms in our economy use unsecured credit and small firms use secured credit. Existing scholarship has not done much, however, to explain that pattern. In a recent article, I attributed the use of unsecured credit by large firms to the limited ability...

This Essay explores the effects of stored-value cards on social welfare. We argue that stored-value cards, in general, are socially beneficial payment devices. Their burgeoning use benefits society in three main plains. First, by replacing paper-based instruments in market segments previously...

This paper examines legal and policy issues raised by changes in payment methods related to the rise of the Internet. The two major changes - the rise of P2P systems like PayPal, and the rise of Internet billing systems (EBPP) to replace the use of paper bills and checks - both involve new...

This paper compares a dataset of failed venture-backed firms to information about the firm's liquidation choices. The first finding is that firms in California are much less likely to use the bankruptcy process than firms in other states, largely because of their ability to use a cheaper and...

This paper analyzes the relation between the patenting behavior of startup firms and the progress of those firms through the venture capital cycle. Linking data relating to venture capital financing of software startup firms with data concerning the patents obtained by those firms, we find...