'Consumer law has truly matured as an object of scholarly inquiry in recent years, in particular (but not only) through the embrace of sophisticated insights into real-life consumer behaviour as a basis for regulatory design. This book brings together writers who have been and remain at the forefront of intellectual inquiry, and it permits them to enrich thinking about patterns and styles of research into consumer law.' - Stephen Weatherill, University of Oxford, UK European consumer law seeks to ensure that consumers receive sufficient information about goods and services, are not subject to unfair contract clauses or unfair commercial practices, and have the means to redress grievances. This Handbook specifically considers the impacts of different disciplines and methods as it presents the state of the art in consumer law research and in particular offers intriguing new insights from behavioural science. Research Methods in Consumer Law shows how different lenses help to highlight under-researched areas of consumer law and engage with current debates in order to suggest pertinent legal reforms. Rules meant to protect consumers are often premised on the fact that small print is read, understood and acted upon. Acknowledging that this is rarely the case, the expert contributors offer new perspectives, informed by the study of how real people behave and paying careful attention to methodology. Offering the tools to engage in promising and socially useful legal research, this Handbook will appeal to students and scholars across the fields of law and behavioural science, as it offers a fresh look at the relation between EU consumer law and other disciplines oriented to solving practical problems. Contributors include: M. Artigot Golobardes, F. Esposito, S. Frerichs, F. Gomez Pomar, P. Hacker, G. Helleringer, J. Luzak, M. Malecka, H.-W. Micklitz, F. Moeslein, M. Nagatsu, K.P. Purnhagen, G. Ruhl, A.-L. Sibony, J. Trzaskowski, F. Weber

Behavioural sciences help refine our understanding of human decision-making. Their insights are immensely relevant for policy-making since public intervention works much better when it targets real people rather than imaginary beings assumed to be perfectly rational. Increasingly, governments around the world are keen to rely on those insights for reshaping public interventions in a wide range of policy areas such as energy, health, financial services and data protection. When policy-making meets behavioural sciences, effective and low-cost regulations can emerge in the form of default rules, smart disclosure and simplification requirements. While behaviourally-informed intervention has a huge potential for policymaking, it also attracts legitimacy and practicability concerns. Nudge and the Law takes a European perspective on those issues and explores the legal implications of the emergent phenomenon of behavioural regulation by focusing on the challenges and opportunities it may offer to EU policy-making and beyond.

Behavioural sciences help refine our understanding of human decision-making. Their insights are immensely relevant for policy-making since public intervention works much better when it targets real people rather than imaginary beings assumed to be perfectly rational. Increasingly, governments around the world are keen to rely on those insights for reshaping public interventions in a wide range of policy areas such as energy, health, financial services and data protection. When policy-making meets behavioural sciences, effective and low-cost regulations can emerge in the form of default rules, smart disclosure and simplification requirements. While behaviourally-informed intervention has a huge potential for policymaking, it also attracts legitimacy and practicability concerns. Nudge and the Law takes a European perspective on those issues and explores the legal implications of the emergent phenomenon of behavioural regulation by focusing on the challenges and opportunities it may offer to EU policy-making and beyond.