IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/buspol/v17y2015i4p697-721n1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cooling off periods in franchise contracts: from consumer protection mechanisms to paternalistic remedies for behavioral biases

Author

Listed:
  • Atwell Courtenay

    (Taxation and Business Law, University of New South Wales, Level 2, Quadrangle Building, Kensington, New South Wales 2052, Australia)

Abstract

The “cooling-off period” has remained a fixture of domestic consumer-protection legislation. Yet, as I argue in this paper, the longevity of these provisions is neither the result of their effectiveness at solving the problems they were intended to solve nor the forces of path dependence. Rather, I suggest that the cooling-off period has endured because of a process of gradual ideational adaptation. Over the course of the 20th century, legal and economic intellectuals advising government agencies have abandoned traditional consumer-protection rationales that led to the creation of cooling-off periods in favor of a paternalistic policy orientation that integrates behavioral science insights. Though the organizational problems the cooling-off period were expected to resolve have been more effectively addressed through the concurrent institution of other protective measures, such as the disclosure document and compulsory advisory provisions, the cooling-off period has found new uses and advocates, which have made it far from obsolete.

Suggested Citation

  • Atwell Courtenay, 2015. "Cooling off periods in franchise contracts: from consumer protection mechanisms to paternalistic remedies for behavioral biases," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 697-721, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:buspol:v:17:y:2015:i:4:p:697-721:n:1
    DOI: 10.1515/bap-2014-0024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/bap-2014-0024
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/bap-2014-0024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jörg Oechssler & Andreas Roider & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2015. "Cooling Off in Negotiations: Does it Work?," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 171(4), pages 565-588, December.
    2. Cass R. Sunstein & Richard H. Thaler, 2003. "Libertarian paternalism is not an oxymoron," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 48(Jun).
    3. John Asker, 2000. "Bidding up, buying out and cooling-off: an examination of auctions with withdrawal rights," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 16(3), pages 585-611.
    4. Ewoud Hondius, 2004. "The Protection of the Weak Party in a Harmonised European Contract Law: A Synthesis," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 245-251, September.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Uri Gneezy & John A List, 2006. "Putting Behavioral Economics to Work: Testing for Gift Exchange in Labor Markets Using Field Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1365-1384, September.
    7. Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, 2023. "Libertarian paternalism," Chapters, in: Cass R. Sunstein & Lucia A. Reisch (ed.), Research Handbook on Nudges and Society, chapter 1, pages 10-16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Richard H. Thaler, 2017. "Behavioral Economics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(6), pages 1799-1805.
    9. Thelen,Kathleen, 2014. "Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107679566, September.
    10. Cardella, Eric & Chiu, Ray, 2012. "Stackelberg in the lab: The effect of group decision making and “Cooling-off” periods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1070-1083.
    11. Thelen,Kathleen, 2014. "Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107053168, September.
    12. Elizabeth Spencer, 2008. "Conditions for effective disclosure in the regulation of franchising," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 509-525.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christine Jolls & Cass R. Sunstein, 2006. "Debiasing through Law," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 199-242, January.
    2. Allcott, Hunt & Rogers, Todd, 2012. "How Long Do Treatment Effects Last? Persistence and Durability of a Descriptive Norms Intervention's Effect on Energy Conservation," Working Paper Series rwp12-045, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Courtenay Atwell, 2015. "The Franchisee as a Consumer: Determining the Optimal Duration of Pre-Contractual Disclosure," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 457-489, December.
    4. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2018. "Bank Runs and Minimum Reciprocity," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1099, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    5. Marianne Bertrand & Dean S. Karlan & Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir & Jonathan Zinman, 2005. "What's Psychology Worth? A Field Experiment in the Consumer Credit Market," Working Papers 918, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    6. Cristiano Codagnone & Giuseppe Alessandro Veltri & Francesco Bogliacino & Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva & George Gaskell & Andriy Ivchenko & Pietro Ortoleva & Francesco Mureddu, 2016. "Labels as nudges? An experimental study of car eco-labels," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 33(3), pages 403-432, December.
    7. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    8. Ashton, John K. & Hudson, Robert S., 2008. "Interest rate clustering in UK financial services markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1393-1403, July.
    9. van Dalen, H.P. & Henkens, K. & Koedijk, C.G. & Slager, A.M.H., 2010. "Decision Making in the Pension Fund Board Room : An Experiment with Dutch Pension Fund Trustees," Discussion Paper 2010-18, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    10. Häckel, Björn & Pfosser, Stefan & Tränkler, Timm, 2017. "Explaining the energy efficiency gap - Expected Utility Theory versus Cumulative Prospect Theory," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 414-426.
    11. Katharina Momsen & Sebastian O. Schneider, 2022. "Motivated Reasoning, Information Avoidance, and Default Bias," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2022_03, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    12. Alexia Gaudeul & Robert Sugden, 2012. "Spurious Complexity and Common Standards in Markets for Consumer Goods," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(314), pages 209-225, April.
    13. Attari, Shahzeen Z. & Schoen, Mary & Davidson, Cliff I. & DeKay, Michael L. & Bruine de Bruin, Wändi & Dawes, Robyn & Small, Mitchell J., 2009. "Preferences for change: Do individuals prefer voluntary actions, soft regulations, or hard regulations to decrease fossil fuel consumption?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1701-1710, April.
    14. Maria Alessandra Antonelli & Valeria De Bonis & Angelo Castaldo & Alessandrao Gandolfo, 2022. "Sin goods taxation: an encompassing model," Public Finance Research Papers 52, Istituto di Economia e Finanza, DSGE, Sapienza University of Rome.
    15. Kaenzig, Josef & Heinzle, Stefanie Lena & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2013. "Whatever the customer wants, the customer gets? Exploring the gap between consumer preferences and default electricity products in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 311-322.
    16. Axel H. Börsch-Supan & Tabea Bucher-Koenen & Michael D. Hurd & Susann Rohwedder, 2018. "Saving Regret," NBER Working Papers 25238, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Rachel Croson & Nicolas Treich, 2014. "Behavioral Environmental Economics: Promises and Challenges," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(3), pages 335-351, July.
    18. Laura Abrardi, 2019. "Behavioral barriers and the energy efficiency gap: a survey of the literature," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 46(1), pages 25-43, March.
    19. Saskia Lavrijssen & Arturo Carrillo Parra, 2017. "Radical Prosumer Innovations in the Electricity Sector and the Impact on Prosumer Regulation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-21, July.
    20. Bertrand, Marianne & Shafir, Eldar & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2006. "Behavioral Economics and Marketing in Aid of Decision Making Among the Poor," Scholarly Articles 2962609, Harvard University Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:buspol:v:17:y:2015:i:4:p:697-721:n:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.