Article by Oren Bar-Gill and Ryan Bubb makes Corporate Practice Commentator's annual top 10 list

The Corporate Practice Commentator’s annual "Top 10 Corporate and Securities Articles" list for this year includes “Credit Card Pricing: The CARD Act and Beyond” by Professor Oren Bar-Gill and Professor Ryan Bubb. The poll tabulates the top selections by teachers of corporate and securities law from a pool of more than 550 articles published in 2012.

Oren Bar-Gill
Ryan Bubb

In the article, published last year in the Cornell Law Review, Bar-Gill and Bubb undertake an empirical investigation of whether the Credit CARD Act of 2009 effectively addresses concerns about credit card pricing, including the scenario in which card contracts entice consumers with low prices in the initial short term (no annual fee, low interest rates) only to impose high prices in the long term. While the CARD Act limits long-term prices, it does not restrict temptingly low initial annual percentage rates (APRs). Looking at the data to determine how successful the act’s impact has been in terms of those concerns, the co-authors find that the CARD Act has been effective against over-the-limit and late payment fees, but the basic low-first-high-later pricing structure remains largely intact. Bar-Gill and Bubb consider alternative approaches, including a total-cost disclosure system to help consumers choose more wisely among credit card offers and direct regulation of introductory teaser rates.

Over the 19-year history of the annual lists, 17 articles authored or co-authored by Marcel Kahan, George T. Lowy Professor of Law, and 12 articles authored or co-authored by Stephen Choi, Murray and Kathleen Bring Professor of Law, have been recognized by their peers, putting Kahan and Choi in first and second places, respectively, among all the authors selected since the poll began in 1994. Jennifer Arlen ’86, Norma Z. Paige Professor of Law, has had three articles included on the lists. William Allen, Nusbaum Professor of Law and Business, and Geoffrey Miller, Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law, have each been recognized for an article as well.

Posted on May 2, 2013