The 2009 Obermann Summer Research Seminar

Monday June 8 - Saturday June 13, 2009

Seminar Director: Katherine Porter,
Associate Professor of Law, The University of Iowa

• Video of "Costs of Care: Directions in Health Care Reform" by Dr. Steffie Woolhandler
• Audio of a Iowa Public Radio program "The fallout of Borrowing to the Brink" featuring seminar participants sociology professors Kevin Leicht (UI) and Deborah Thorne (Ohio State)

An enduring trend of the last three decades is escalating consumer debt. The growth in borrowing spans social classes, making consumer debt perhaps the most commonly shared quality of American families. Borrowing powerfully shapes the psychological, social, cultural, legal, economic, and political relationships in society.

While debt is ubiquitous in American life, it is a private transaction. People are loath to disclose their financial circumstances, and this reaction only sharpens as economic circumstances decline. Families in bankruptcy are a public window into the private world of financial distress. Their experiences can inform our knowledge about consumer debt. For example, sociologists are interested in how individuals manage the stigma of financial distress, while behavioral economists seek a greater understanding of how cognitive biases may shape inefficient financial decisions. Without a window to study such phenomena, scholars have struggled to document and understand the effects of consumer debt.

This seminar will produce a collection of empirical papers that originate from a single data set, the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project, the largest and most representative academic study of consumer bankruptcy. The random national sample consists of 2,500 bankrupt households, including subgroups such as older Americans, homeowners, members of minority groups, and small business owners. The 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project gathered data using three research instruments: a written survey completed by debtors that collected demographic information; the public bankruptcy court records that provide financial information for all debtors; and a one-hour telephone interview on the causes of debtors’ bankruptcies and their reactions to financial distress. The database has thousands of variables and is suitable for quantitative or qualitative analysis.

Seminar Participants

• Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and author of Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Health Care is coming to the seminar to discuss medical debt and the costs of health care. View Video of Dr. Woolhandler's presentation "Costs of Care: Directions in Health Care Reform."

• Robert Lawless, the Galowich-Huzienga Faculty Scholar at the University of Illinois College of Law, is an expert on small business bankruptcies. His work has appeared in the New York Times and CNN. His current research is on entrepreneurs and financial distress.

• Deborah Thorne, Associate Professor of Sociology specializes in consumerism, debt, social inequality and gender. Recently she appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight. She is particularly interested in how couples and families with children cope with financial hardship.

• Katherine M. Porter, is directing the Borrowing to the Brink seminar and is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. She frequently testifies before the House and Senate. Her work on home ownership was featured in a front-page NY Times story. Her seminar paper is on student loan debt.

• Dov Cohen, cultural psychologist from the University of Illinois is an expert on honor and stigma in society. His research examines ideas of shame in bankruptcy and the experiences of different racial groups in choosing to file bankruptcy.

• Marianne B. Culhane, Professor of Law, Creighton University, has had her research hotly debated in Congress during the bankruptcy reform. Her project studies how families use bankruptcy to try to save their homes.

• Kevin T. Leicht, sociology professor at the University of Iowa has recently authored Postindustrial Peasants: The Illusion of Middle Class Prosperity. His seminar work looks at how consumers have used credit as a crutch to make up for the lack of income growth in recent decades.

• Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor, Harvard Law School and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee TARP bailout fund. She has authored the best-selling books, All Your Worth: the Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan, and The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke. She is the nation's leading expert on the demographics of bankruptcy debtors.

• Ronald Mann, Professor of Law at Columbia University, is the foremost legal scholar of credit cards in America. He is the author of the acclaimed book, Charging Ahead: The Growth of Payment Card Markets. With Katherine Porter, he is currently writing about how families decide to file bankruptcy. His seminar paper looks at how different age groups accumulate credit card debt.

• Jerry Anthony, Associate Professor, at the Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning, The University of Iowa.His scholarship focuses on housing policy, land use, smart growth and international planning issues. His paper is entitled “A Critical Look at Housing Cost Burden Ratios: Do They Lead, Mislead or are Irrelevant?”

• Brian K. Bucks, an Economist with The Federal Reserve Board will make a presentation on Survey of Consumer Finance and his paper "Wealth and Financial Well-being among Bankrupt and Non-Bankrupt Households"
   
• Angela K. Littwin, from The University of Texas at Austin School of Law will address "Pro Se Debtors in Bankruptcy" at the seminar. Her most recent article in the Texas Law Review is on usury and credit card use among low-income consumers.