Todd Zywicki

Todd Zywicki

  • Mercatus Center Senior Scholar
  • GMU Foundation Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law
  • Senior Fellow at the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Todd J. Zywicki is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law, Senior Scholar of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and Senior Fellow at the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.  In 2009, Professor Zywicki was honored as the recipient of the Institute for Humane Studies 2009 Charles G. Koch Outstanding IHS Alum Award.  Since 2006 he has served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review.  From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission.  He teaches in the area of Bankruptcy, Contracts, Commercial Law, Business Associations, Law & Economics, and Public Choice and the Law.  He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, and Mississippi College School of Law.

Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics.   Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.

Professor Zywicki is a Senior Scholar of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Senior Fellow of the James Buchanan Center for Political Economy Program on Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, at George Mason University, a Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute, and a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy.  During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.  He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, Canada, and Guatemala.  In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on "Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System."  In 2011 Professor Zywicki delivered the Dean Lindsey Cowen Lecture in Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve School of Law on the mortgage crisis and regulation.

Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 70 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals.  He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network, both All Time and during the Past 12 Months.  He served as the Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2001-02.  He has testified several times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Forbes, Nightline, National Review, NBC Nightly News, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Fox and Friends, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, ABC Radio, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Radio Show, Neil Caputo Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.  He is a contributor to the popular legal weblog The Volokh Conspiracy and The Atlantic magazine's The Atlantic Business Channel.

Professor Zywicki is a member of the the board of trustees or advisory board of numerous nonprofit and educational organizations, including the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business, the Board of Directors of  the The Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Advisory Council of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Board of Trustees and Program Advisory Board of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), the Board of Trustees of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education, and the Advisory Council of the Centro para el Analisis de las Decisiones Publicas, Universidad de Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala City, Guatemala (Public Choice Center at University of Francisco Marroquin) .  He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois.  From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.  In 2009 he was elected to the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University.

Published Research

Working Papers

Todd Zywicki | Jan 15, 2013
This paper describes the current economic and regulatory landscape for prepaid cards. The market appears to be robustly competitive, as recent years have seen declining costs and increasing functionality as well as entry of major players such as American Express and several large banks. Nor is there any evidence that consumers systematically err in the cards that they choose. Absent a demonstrable competitive market failure or systematic consumer abuse, prescriptive regulation of the terms and substance of prepaid cards would likely have unintended consequences that would exceed the benefits to consumers. On the other hand, there are some regulations that might be enacted that could promote competition and consumer welfare in this rapidly evolving market.
Todd Zywicki | Oct 01, 2012
In “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Savior or Menace?” Todd Zywicki provides a short history of the CFPB and of consumer credit regulation in America, including many of the lessons researchers have learned from decades of bureaucratic design. The CFPB’s structure, as Zywicki notes, ignores many of these lessons. The paper outlines several known problems that often plague bureaucratic organizations and explains how the CFPB will be particularly vulnerable to these failings unless it sees significant reform.
Todd Zywicki | Oct 24, 2011
This working paper explores the use and regulation of bank overdraft protection. It concludes that, absent a demonstrable market failure or demonstration of systematic consumer abuse, restriction on consumer choice of overdraft protection would likely impose substantial costs on consumers and banks with minimal gains.
Todd Zywicki | Sep 2009

Policy Briefs

Todd Zywicki, Robert Sarvis | Jan 14, 2013
Government regulators proposing restrictions on specific forms of consumer credit all too often ignore the reality of how and why consumers use credit. They also ignore lenders’ legitimate reasons for pricing their services as they do; consumers’ legitimate reasons for choosing the financing options they do; the risks consumers face when credit offerings are made unavailable to them; and the many consumers who use the particular forms of consumer credit responsibly and effectively.
Todd Zywicki, Astrid Arca | Jan 11, 2010
In the wake of the financial crisis, Congress is considering new regulations on non-traditional lending products like payday lending, although there is no evidence that such products were related in…
Todd Zywicki, Gabriel Lucjan Okolski | Nov 2009
One can hardly turn on a TV without seeing commercials in which cash-strapped individuals bring their car titles to a lender for quick and easy loans. While auto title lending may appear to be…
Stefanie Haeffele-Balch, Todd Zywicki | Oct 2009
In an effort to correct problems that led to the current housing and mortgage crisis, policy makers have proposed a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) that would have the authority to…

Testimony & Comments

Todd Zywicki | Jul 10, 2012
Much of the government’s political intervention in the bankruptcy cases appears to have been motivated to benefit the UAW rather than the companies themselves over U.S. taxpayers, who put billions of dollars at risk to fund the bailouts.
Todd Zywicki, Asa Skinner | Jun 28, 2012
Profits gained from overdraft protection have been used by banks to expand services and accessibility for customers both rich and poor, and limiting overdraft protection may threaten many of the benefits that it makes possible.
Todd Zywicki | May 24, 2011
Todd Zywicki testified before the House Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs.
Todd Zywicki | Feb 26, 2010
In this testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Prof. Todd Zywicki discusses the negative impact of recently-enacted and contemplated future legislation in interfering with a…

Research Summaries & Toolkits

Expert Commentary

Jan 29, 2013

New mortgage rules released by the CFPB show why heightened oversight is necessary.
Aug 21, 2012

Consumers and businesses, especially small businesses, benefit when competition and consumer choice decides winners and losers in the marketplace, not politicians. It is time to put the endless interchange litigation and ancillary political efforts to rest.
Jul 20, 2012

Two years later, after being praised by politicians as the financial system’s magic bullet, Dodd-Frank is, in effect, riddled with half-baked solutions, corrupted by special interests, and poised to create, not prevent, the next financial crisis.
By Todd Zywicki, James Sherk |
Jun 26, 2012

The president did not need to lose billions to keep the automakers — and Michigan's economy — going. If he had given them only bankruptcy loans, the taxpayers would have broken even.

Contact

Todd Zywicki

Podcasts

Todd Zywicki | April 03, 2012
Speaking to an audience of primarily Congressional staffers, Todd Zywicki examines the degree to which executive branch and independent agencies are subject to checks and balances on their regulatory authority. Topics include why it is necessary to regulate regulators, the factors that strength or weaken regulatory accountability, and what Nixon-era bureaucracy and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have in common.