After a long period of prosperity and steady economic growth, the world's leading economies are now in crisis, and although there will be debate about its origins, the scale and seriousness of the crisis is in no doubt. There is also no doubt that excessive amounts of consumer credit, allied to a weak understanding of how globalised credit markets might react to a crisis, have played a significant part. This book, which is primarily about credit, debt and the trouble they have led to, is written by authors who have specialised in researching into over-indebtedness, that is, situations in which an individual's debt burden has become overwhelming. For these authors the plight of individuals is a primary concern, but the wider issue is how credit is used and how it changes societies. The essays in this volume, addressing topics which are fundamental to our understanding of the current crisis, range widely across the whole sector of consumer finance, including mortgages, 'credit-binges', the regulation of consumer lending, insolvency, repayment plans, debt counselling and much more besides. The conclusions drawn from the book are equally wide-ranging, but above all the lesson learned from these essays is that the financialisation of contemporary life ensures that issues of the appropriate role of credit remain of critical importance in society.

Consumer Bankruptcy and over-indebtedness is an emerging field throughout the world. This book provides a comparative appraisal of global developments in this area. It is one of the first book length publications focusing on comparative consumer bankruptcy and over-indebtedness. It combines theoretical and empirical studies of bankruptcy regimes and consumer credit in civilian and common law jurisdictions as well as exploring current reform trends. The book will be of interest to academics, policymakers and law reformers as well as to practitioners.

This book contains the papers prepared for a conference held at the Wisconsin Law School in 2011 to honour the work of Stewart Macaulay, one of the most famous contracts scholars of his generation. Macaulay has been writing about contracts and contract law for over 50 years; the 1960s were particularly productive years for him, when he introduced many novel ideas into the scholarly world. Macaulay's foundational work for what is now called relational contract theory was published during this period. Macaulay is also known for his use of empirical research and interdisciplinary theories to illuminate our knowledge of contracting practices. The papers in this volume reflect, in diverse ways, on the subsequent influence and the contemporary relevance of Macaulay's work. All the contributors are important contracts scholars in their own right: David Campbell and John Wightman from the UK, Brian Bix, Jay Feinman, Robert Gordon, Claire Hill, Charles Knapp, Ethan Leib, Deborah Post, Edward Rubin, Carol Sanger, Robert Scott, Gordon Smith, Josh Whitford (with Li-Wen Lin) and William Woodward from the USA. The volume also reproduces Macaulay's most cited paper, 'Non-Contractual Relations in Business', and excerpts from two other important papers of his, 'Private Legislation and the Duty to Read-Business Run by IBM Machine, the Law of Contracts and Credit Cards', and 'The Real and The Paper Deal: Empirical Pictures of Relationships, Complexity and the Urge for Transparent Simple Rules'.