Ronald Mann: Guest Blogger

Credit Slips welcomes Professor Ronald Mann as our inaugural guest blogger. He is the Ben H. & Kitty King Powell Chair in Business and Commercial Law and the Co-Director of the Center for Law, Business, and Economics at the University of Texas School of Law and an expert on credit card law and policy. While one of his more impressive achievements is arguably the distillation of his myriad accomplishments into a concise CV, I'll be an obedient blogger and focus instead on the reason that I think his work is really important.  In a decade of scholarly research, Ronald has masterfully blended public and private law concerns to show how something as arcane and ominous sounding as a "payment system" shapes how consumers spend and borrow, and how these choices affect society. He marshals credible empirical data for his analyses and presents his findings in a balanced and measured way. Translation: he has thought long and hard about what's good and what's bad about credit cards and other payment devices, and he will make you think long and hard about the same. If you find his postings intriguing, read his just-released book Charging Ahead: The Growth and Regulation of Payment Card Markets Around the World. It's accessible but sophisticated, and I commend it to Credit Slips readers.