Consumer credit, debt and bankruptcy : comparative and international perspectives / edited by Johanna Niemi, Iain Ramsay and William C. Whitford.

Selected papers from the meeting of the Law and Society Association held in Berlin during July 2007.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Inequality and access to financial services / Gregory D Squires -- The political economy of consumer credit securitization : comparing predatory lending in home finance in the US, UK, Germany and Japan / Christopher L Peterson -- Consumer overindebtedness in Brazil and the need for new consumer bankruptcy legislation / Claudia Lima-Marques and Antonio Benjamin --'Wannabe WAGS' and'credit binges' : the constructions of overindebtedness in the UK / Iain Ramsay -- Overindebted households and law : prevention and rehabilitation in Europe / Johanna Niemi --'A call to arms' : for regulation of consumer lending / Udo Reifner -- The political economy of the EC consumer credit directive / Sefa M Franklin -- Disclosure as an imperfect means for addressing overindebtedness : an empirical assessment of comparative approaches / Susan Block-Lied ... [et al.]. -- Prevention of overindebtedness and mechanisms for resolving overindebtedness of South African consumers / Michelle Kelly-Louw -- The myth of the cautious consumer : law, culture, economics and politics in the rise and partial fall of unsecured lending in Japan / Souichirou Kozuka and Luke Nottage -- Making sense of nation-level bankruptcy filing rates / Ronald J Mann -- Overindebtedness and financial stress : a comparative study in Europe / Catarina Frade and Claudia Abreu Lopes -- Bankruptcy in Germany : filing rates and the people behind the numbers / Wolfram Backert ... [et al.] -- Elderly consumer weakness in'withholding credit' / Johannes Doll -- Two decades, three key questions, and evolving answers in European consumer insolvency law : responsibility, discretion, and sacrifice / Jason Kilborn -- A law-in-action approach to comparative study of repayment forms of consumer bankruptcy / Jean Braucher -- Debt agreements from down under / John Duns and Rosalind Mason -- Personal bankruptcy in Korea / Soogeun Oh --New labour : more debt : the political response / Michael Green -- Debt counseling in the shadow of the court : the Dutch experience / Nadja Jungmann and Nick Huls.