Household Finance: Legal and Institutional Framework

The project has explored legal household finance literature, legislative action and emerging judicial decisions both in comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. The area of household finance has not only been a long neglected topic in legal research, there is also strong and ongoing legislative activity all over the globe. Hence, there is much groundwork to be done and continued.

The project’s focus has been on developing a roadmap for legislative action including its underpinning theoretical premises, both from an economic as well as from a more policy-oriented viewpoint. Surprisingly, we found very diverse pedigrees of regulatory initiatives, e.g. more liberal, “free-market” oriented approaches versus more paternalistic, “nudging” legislators. Case studies as well as problem studies are under work in order to understand the premises legislators make, as well as work on tools in order to differentiate more promising legislative instruments from less promising ones.