More Than You Wanted to Know

Omri Ben-Shahar; Carl E. Schneider

Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl E. Schneider

More Than You Wanted to Know

The Failure of Mandated Disclosure

Princeton University Press | 2014

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850389

Overview
Contents

About this book

Perhaps no kind of regulation is more common or less useful than mandated disclosure—requiring one party to a transaction to give the other information. It is the iTunes terms you assent to, the doctor's consent form you sign, the pile of papers you get with your mortgage. Reading the terms, the form, and the papers is supposed to equip you to choose your purchase, your treatment, and your loan well. More Than You Wanted to Know surveys the evidence and finds that mandated disclosure rarely works. But how could it? Who reads these disclosures? Who understands them? Who uses them to make better choices?

Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl Schneider put the regulatory problem in human terms. Most people find disclosures complex, obscure, and dull. Most people make choices by stripping information away, not layering it on. Most people find they can safely ignore most disclosures and that they lack the literacy to analyze them anyway. And so many disclosures are mandated that nobody could heed them all. Nor can all this be changed by simpler forms in plainer English, since complex things cannot be made simple by better writing. Furthermore, disclosure is a lawmakers' panacea, so they keep issuing new mandates and expanding old ones, often instead of taking on the hard work of writing regulations with bite.

Timely and provocative, More Than You Wanted to Know takes on the form of regulation we encounter daily and asks why we must encounter it at all.

Author information

Omri Ben-Shahar is the Leo and Eileen Herzel Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. His books include Boilerplate: The Foundation of Market Contracts. Carl E. Schneider is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law and professor of medicine at the University of Michigan. His books include The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors, and Medical Decisions.

Reviews

"Ben-Shahar and Schneider present a compelling argument. They contend that mandated disclosure is a policy failure that is not easily remedied."—Zev J. Eigen, Northwestern University

"Ben-Shahar and Schneider have written what for a long time will be the definitive work on regulations that require sellers of goods and services to provide information about their products that sellers will not voluntarily provide but that the regulators believe will help the consumers to make intelligent choices. Apparently these 'mandated disclosures' are ignored by the vast majority of consumers. The authors are unrelievedly negative about the efficacy of mandated disclosures. They are right to be. Their analysis is clear, comprehensive, and convincing."—Judge Richard A. Posner, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

"I read this book with rapt attention. It is magnificent. Ben-Shahar and Schneider have done a masterful job of setting out their case clearly, plainly, and persuasively."—Tom Baker, University of Pennsylvania

"Significant and original. The research is prodigious. I am not aware of another treatment of disclosure that crosses disciplinary lines to this extent, and the analysis is all the more worthwhile for it. Ben-Shahar and Schneider show how disclosures have become pervasive in our society yet are largely ignored and misunderstood."—Clayton Gillette, New York University

Because consumers continue to overlook mandated disclosures, opting instead to scroll quickly through screen after screen of seemingly irrelevant legalese, this book by Ben-Shahar and Schneider is especially pertinent.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	vii
Preface Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	ix
Part I. The Ubiquity of Mandated Disclosure
1. Introduction Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	3
2. Complex Decisions, Complex Disclosures Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	14
3. The Failure of Mandated Disclosure Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	33
Part II. Why Disclosures Fail
4. “Whatever”: The Psychology of Mandated Disclosure Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	59
5. Reading Disclosures Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	79
6. The Quantity Question Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	94
7. From Disclosure to Decision Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	107
Part III. Can Mandated Disclosure Be Saved?
8. Make It Simple? Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	121
9. The Politics of Disclosure Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	138
10. Producing Disclosures Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	151
11. At Worst, Harmless? Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	169
12. Conclusion: Beyond Disclosurism Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	183
Notes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	197
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	225

(Deutsch)

More Than You Wanted to Know

The Failure of Mandated Disclosure

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