Ralph Brubaker is a professor of law at the University of Illinois. He is a prolific scholar of bankruptcy law and policy and is an expert on the complex jurisdictional and procedural facets of federal bankruptcy proceedings. He has been a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the American Bankruptcy Institute, and is a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy.Robert M. Lawless is a professor of law and co-director of the Illinois Program on Law, Behavior & Social Science at the University of Illinois where he writes and teaches about bankruptcy and consumer credit. He is a regular contributor to the blog Credit Slips, a discussion on credit and bankruptcy, and a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy.Charles J. Tabb is the Alice C. Campbell Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, and is on the Católica Global Law Faculty in Lisbon, Portugal. Professor Tabb has published 6 books and dozens of articles on bankruptcy law. He advised the Chinese government on the reform of their bankruptcy law; served on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure; and served as a Uniform Law Commissioner. Professor Tabb is a member of the Board of Regents of the American College of Bankruptcy.

"The American Bankruptcy Institute is pleased to commend this timely and thought-provoking volume. The world faces a wall of public and private debt. Sovereign nations in Europe are at the economic brink, threatening the central currency and continental union. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal debt in the United States in on pace to double by the middle of the next decade and reach more than twice the size of the entire U.S. economy by2037. Households groan under the weight of chronic heavy consumer spending, low personal savings rates, flat income growth, and underwater mortgages. The galaxy of academic stars assembled by RalphBrubaker, Robert Lawless and Charles Tabb have produced a work rich in the causes and consequences of too much debt in our society." --Samuel J. Gerdano, Esq., Executive Director, American Bankruptcy Institute

• List of Contributors ; Preface ; I. Social Institutions That Create an Indebted World ; Chapter One ; Debt, Credit and Poverty in Early Modern England ; Craig Muldrew, Senior Lecturer in History, Queens' College, University of Cambridge ; Chapter Two ; Debt and the Simulation of Social Class ; Teresa A. Sullivan, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan ; Chapter Three ; "Hyperconsumption" and "Hyperdebt": A "Hypercritical" Analysis ; George Ritzer, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland ; II. Decisions to Lend ; Chapter Four ; Lender Incentives, Credit Risk, and Securitization: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis ; Amir Sufi, Associate Professor of Finance, University of Chicago ; Chapter Five ; How and Why Credit Assessors "Get it Wrong" When Judging the Risk of Borrowers: Past and Present Evidence at Home and Abroad ; Paul Vaaler, Associate Professor of Management, University of Minnesota ; Gerry McNamara, Professor of Management, Michigan State University ; III. Decisions to Borrow ; Chapter Six ; The Psychology of Debt in Poor Households in Britain ; Stephen E.G. Lea, Professor of Psychology and Head of School, University of Exeter ; Avril J. Mewse, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Exeter ; Wendy Wrapson, Honorary Fellow in Psychology, University of Exeter ; Chapter Seven ; Brain, Decision, and Debt ; Brian Knutson, Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Stanford University ; Gregory R. Samanez-Larkin, Doctoral Candidate in Psychology, Stanford University ; Chapter Eight ; The Limits of Enhanced Disclosure in Bankruptcy Law: Anticipated and Experienced Emotion ; Richard L. Wiener, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Law and Psychology Program, University of Nebraska at Lincoln ; Jason A. Cantone, Doctoral Candidate in Psychology, University of Nebraska at Lincoln ; Michael Holtje, Doctoral Candidate in Psychology, University of Nebraska at Lincoln ; Susan Block-Lieb, Professor of Law, Fordham University ; IV. Political and Legal Responses to Over-Indebtedness ; Chapter Nine ; The Virtue of Consumer Bankruptcy ; Heidi M. Hurd, David C. Baum Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, University of Illinois ; Chapter Ten ; Missing Debtors: National Lawmaking and Global Norm-Making of Corporate Bankruptcy Regimes ; Terence C. Halliday, Co-Director, Center on Law and Globalization of the American Bar Foundation & the University of Illinois College of Law, and Research Professor, American Bar Foundation ; Susan Block-Lieb, Professor of Law, Fordham University ; Bruce G. Carruthers, Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University ; Chapter Eleven ; Balance of Knowledge ; Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard University ; Index