Rawley Z. Heimer
Menu

Research › Legal and regulatory institutions

Legal and regulatory institutions

How courts, regulators, and politics shape credit markets and what consumers get from them: contract enforcement and long-run development on Native American reservations, political interference in fair-lending enforcement, and how complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau turn into restitution.

Related terms: contract enforcement, Public Law 280, tribal courts, financial development, regulatory enforcement, political interference, fair-lending enforcement, CFPB, consumer complaints, restitution and redress.

Published papers

  1. Politicizing Consumer Credit

    With Pat Akey and Stefan Lewellen

    Journal of Financial Economics

    When a state’s senator becomes a powerful committee chair, credit access in the state’s minority neighborhoods falls by 7.5%.

  2. Growing Up Without Finance

    With James R. Brown and J. Anthony Cookson

    Journal of Financial Economics

    People who grow up without local banks enter credit markets later and, as adults, have lower credit scores and more delinquent accounts.

  3. Law and Finance Matter: Lessons from Externally Imposed Courts

    With James R. Brown and J. Anthony Cookson

    Review of Financial Studies

    Reservations assigned to state courts, which enforce contracts more predictably, have stronger credit markets and higher incomes.

  4. Courting Economic Development

    With James R. Brown and J. Anthony Cookson

    World Bank Economic Review

    Reservations under state courts grew faster over the long run than similar reservations whose tribal courts enforced contracts less predictably.

Working papers

  1. Fallible Firms: The Economics of Consumer Redress

    With Charlotte Haendler

    Whether consumers get money back after complaining about a financial firm depends more on who complains than on which firm is involved.

Other research topics