Responsive Regulation and Comparative Consumer Product Safety
This paper, an edited and footnoted transcript of a presentation at a research Centre of Excellence at Hokkaido University, looks at the influence of “responsive regulation” theory on the large-scale “Australian Consumer Law” reforms enacted in 2010. It outlines some frameworks developed for a chapter on “Product Safety Regulation” in the Handbook of Research on International Consumer Law (Elgar, 2010), considering ways in which the government (primarily through public regulation), courts (primarily through product liability law) and markets can create incentives to supply safe consumer goods. These frameworks also permit better cross-jurisdictional comparisons, with this paper highlighting major developments also in Japan, Europe, the United States, and international trade law. The paper ends by highlighting implications for other areas of contemporary consumer law, especially consumer credit. As in many countries nowadays regarding consumer goods, including belatedly Australia, responsive regulation theory suggests that there should be scope to add a duty on suppliers of credit to disclose serious problems or risks afflicting their consumer borrowers.
Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us
In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land. The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism--the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many--members of the public, commentators, politicians, economists, and even those charged with cleaning up the mess. In Zombie Economics, John Quiggin explains how these dead ideas still walk among us--and why we must find a way to kill them once and for all if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crisis in the future. Zombie Economics takes the reader through the origins, consequences, and implosion of a system of ideas whose time has come and gone. These beliefs--that deregulation had conquered the financial cycle, that markets were always the best judge of value, that policies designed to benefit the rich made everyone better off--brought us to the brink of disaster once before, and their persistent hold on many threatens to do so again. Because these ideas will never die unless there is an alternative, Zombie Economics also looks ahead at what could replace market liberalism, arguing that a simple return to traditional Keynesian economics and the politics of the welfare state will not be enough--either to kill dead ideas, or prevent future crises. In a new chapter, Quiggin brings the book up to date with a discussion of the re-emergence of pre-Keynesian ideas about austerity and balanced budgets as a response to recession.
“Social Media Misinformation”—An Epidemic within the COVID-19 Pandemic
"Social Media Misinformation"-An Epidemic within the COVID-19 Pandemic.