Ramsay, Iain --- "Regulation of Consumer Credit" [2010] ELECD 178; in Howells, Geraint; Ramsay, Iain; Wihelmsson, Thomas; Kraft, David (eds), "Handbook of Research on International Consumer Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Handbook of Research on International Consumer Law

Editor(s): Howells, Geraint; Ramsay, Iain; Wihelmsson, Thomas; Kraft, David

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201287

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Regulation of Consumer Credit

Author(s): Ramsay, Iain

Number of pages: 43

Extract:

13. Regulation of consumer credit
Iain Ramsay*



1. Introduction
Consumer credit ­ particularly sales credit ­ is not a modern invention,1 but
there was often disapproval of borrowing for consumption rather than produc-
tion. There probably remains a perception that credit is a slightly dangerous
product ­ a perception that might seem to be confirmed by the sub-prime mort-
gage debacle ­ and that is reflected in the requirement of ex ante control by
some governments of suppliers' access to the credit market.2


* Thanks to Geraint Howells, David Kraft, Elaine Kempson, John Pottow and
Toni Williams for comments.
1 There is now a substantial historical literature. For the US see for example L.
Calder (1999), Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit,
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press and sources cited in Lizabeth Cohen (2003),
A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass-consumption in Postwar America, New
York: Knopf. In the UK see for example M. Finn (2003), The Character of Credit,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; P. Johnson (1985), Saving and Spending: The
Working-class Economy in Britain 1870­1939, Oxford: Oxford University Press; C.
Muldrew (1998), The Economy of Obligation, London: Macmillan; S. O'Connell and C.
Reid (2005), `Working Class Credit in the UK, 1925­60: The Role of the Check
Trader', Economic History Review 378­405; S. O'Connell (2009), Credit and
Community: Working-Class Debt in the UK since 1880, Oxford: Oxford University
Press; S.E. Brown (2006), `Consumer Credit and Over-indebtedness: Past, Present ...