Introduction: Consumer Law

One-Way Contracts: Consumer Protection without Law

What if consumer contracts were legally enforceable only against the consumers, but not against the business? This paper, part of my project on the ‘myths of consumer protection,’ describes a regime of ‘one-way contracts’–contracts between consumers and business to which only consumers are bound, the business is not. A breaching business would face no contractual liability. The paper argues tha...

Reforming malpractice law through consumer choice.

Economic Models of Law: Introduction

This introductory chapter to Economic Models of Law (forthcoming, Edward Elgar) discusses the use of economic models for understanding law. It also provides a survey of the contents of the volume, which consist of twenty-one previously published articles in the areas of torts, contracts, property, and legal process.

Symposium Creativity and the Law Introduction: Creativity and the Law

Creativity is on the American mind. President Obama routinely suggests that creativity and ingenuity are the keys to America’s economic future.1 Bill Gates emphasizes the power of creativity to solve the world’s most pressing, and most difficult, problems.2 But the creativity story is, of late, usually bleakly told: indeed, a recent Newsweek cover story proclaimed a “Creativity Crisis.”3 Last N...

An Introduction to Consumer Price Index Methodology

1.1 A price index is a measure of the proportionate, or percentage, changes in a set of prices over time. A consumer price index (CPI) measures changes in the prices of goods and services that households consume. Such changes affect the real purchasing power of consumers’ incomes and their welfare. As the prices of different goods and services do not all change at the same rate, a price index c...