Contact: James Carskadon
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State University will host a symposium on consumer credit with leading economists and Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves on Friday [Dec. 9] at the Mill at MSU Conference Center.
The all-day program, titled “Consumer Credit Symposium: A Century of Experience with the Uniform Small Loan Law,” will include discussion of current consumer credit regulation and a focus on the Uniform Small Loan Law, created 100 years ago. MSU Professor of Finance Thomas W. Miller, Jr. said the idea for the event came up during a lunch conversation on the law with former Federal Reserve Board Senior Economist Thomas A. Durkin. The Uniform Small Loan Law emerged a century ago as a collaborative proposal between progressive reformers and capitalists to provide an alternative to illegal lenders who flourished at the time.
“We’re really excited for this symposium,” the Jack R. Lee Chair in Financial Institutions and Consumer Finance said. “The panels will be focused on different aspects of consumer credit. We want to look back, look at where things are now and look where things are going.”
The symposium is hosted by the MSU College of Business’ Department of Finance and Economics, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, MSU’s Institute for Market Studies and the Jack R. Lee Chair in Financial Institutions and Consumer Finance. The agenda for the symposium includes four panel discussions and two keynote addresses.
Reeves will deliver the lunch session keynote at 12:30 p.m. Lendol Calder, a professor of history at Augustana College and author of “Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit,” will deliver the keynote during the dinner session, which beings at 5:30 p.m.
The first panel, focused on the history of consumer credit and moderated by Miller, will begin at 9:30 a.m. Subsequent panels will follow throughout the day. Featured panelists for the symposium include Durkin, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School Professor Todd Zywicki, Federal Reserve Board Principal Economist Gregory Elliehausen and Mississippi Department of Banking and Consumer Finance Commissioner Charlotte Corley, among others.
“We have people coming with varied opinions, but they share passion, they share strong research methods, and they all share a belief that the consumer should be better off somehow,” Miller said.
For a full agenda for the symposium and to register for the free event, visit https://www.mercatus.org/events/consumer-credit-symposium-century-experience-uniform-small-loan-law.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.