Business Law


Voya Colloquium explores Consumer Financial Decision Making

2023 Voya Guest Speakers
John Lynch, Rafael Becerril Arreola, Rebecca Hamilton, and Robert Lawless

The Marketing Department at the UConn School of Business hosted its 11th annual Voya Financial Colloquium on the topic of “Consumer Financial Decision Making.” The event, held on Oct 13th, 2023, brought together researchers from across the country to discuss how consumers respond to a changing financial landscape, the challenges they face in navigating financial systems and how their interactions within a broader social context influence their financial decisions.

“The study of consumer financial decision making explores how consumers accumulate and use financial resources over time and is a fast-growing area of research within the field of marketing,” said UConn Marketing professor Christina Kan in opening remarks.

Professor Kan, who organized the event, went on to discuss how financial decision making is also of interest to many other disciplines, noting “Our goal for this colloquium was to look at the topic of consumer financial decision making from a variety of different perspectives, and we’re delighted to have a panel of speakers from diverse backgrounds.”

The colloquium featured four distinguished speakers – Professors John Lynch, Rafael Becerril Arreola, Rebecca Hamilton, and Robert Lawless – each of whom approached the topic from different perspectives – including marketing and law – as well as different methodologies – including experimental, econometric, and ethnographic approaches.

The colloquium fostered an energetic discourse between speakers and participants, including marketing and law faculty and doctoral students from UConn, UMass and URI.

Below are profiles of the guest speakers and an abstract of their presentations:

John Lynch, Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder, delved into the complex relationship between financial knowledge, financial behavior, and financial well-being. Lynch highlighted two prevalent approaches to improving consumer financial well-being: financial education and behavioral interventions, often referred to as “nudging.” He introduced the concept of “just in time” financial education, positioning it between these two approaches.

Lynch used these concepts as a springboard for discussion on his recent research into a pressing issue – employees cashing out their 401(k) retirement savings when changing jobs. In a comprehensive study covering 162,360 terminating employees, Lynch and his coauthors found that over 40% of individuals leaked their 401(k) savings, cashing out at job separation, with employer contribution proportions influencing the likelihood of leakage. The findings underscored the unintended consequences of well-intentioned employer matches, revealing the delicate balance between supporting employees and inadvertently encouraging financial decisions that undermine long-term well-being.

Rafael Becerril Arreola, Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina, focused on the impact of product price rankings on consumer choice. His research addressed Veblen effects and counter-effects, investigating how product prices signal consumer wealth. Using a quasi-experimental approach, Becerril Arreola’s approach addresses potential identification threats. His analysis capitalized on a rich dataset on automobile rentals to demonstrate that consumer sensitivity to local rankings of selling-prices is highly heterogeneous, often negative, and comparable in magnitude to consumer sensitivity to rental fees. The study highlights the role that prices play in wealth signaling effects and suggests that conspicuous consumption may be more significant than previously estimated.

Rebecca Hamilton, the Michael G. and Robin Psaros Chair in Business Administration at Georgetown University, explored the challenges families face in responding to resource scarcity. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 diverse families, Hamilton developed a framework illustrating how multi-dimensional, concurrent and/or consecutive life events (such as job changes, house moves or child birth) create mismatches between available and required resources, triggering situational resource scarcity. The study identified various patterns of adjustments in consumption and resource investment over time, and how they are influenced by families’ chronic resource constraints and availability of support networks. Hamilton notes that that the flexibility afforded by multiple family members is constrained by collective goals, domains of control, tensions, and negotiations within families.

Robert Lawless, the Max L. Rowe Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, provided a thought-provoking presentation on the bankruptcy system and the experiences of individuals navigating financial distress. Using data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a long-running study of persons who file bankruptcy, Lawless highlighted the prevalence of personal bankruptcy in the U.S., noting that roughly one in ten Americans have filed bankruptcy at some point during their lives. His presentation focused on two themes. The first centered around the legal and economic consequences of filing bankruptcy and how legal services are marketed just like everything else. The second theme illustrated life in the “sweatbox,” shedding light on the financial precarity and distress that individuals endure in the years leading up to bankruptcy filing.


Popular Business-Law Series Kicks Off With Discussion of College Athletes’ Rights Movement

UConn Today – The School of Business’ popular Equity Now Speaker Series resumes this fall with a discussion about the relatively new opportunity for college athletes to profit from the use of their name, image and likeness.

Read article


Big Changes for Big Business as EU Human Rights Law Nears Enactment

UConn Today – The European Union will soon require thousands of large companies to actively look for and reduce human rights abuses and environmental damage in their supply chains. And although it’s an EU law, it will also cover foreign businesses – including American ones – that have operations in the region.

Read article


Business Law Professor Robert Bird Honored for Impactful, Enduring Contributions to the Discipline

UConn Today – Business law professor Robert Bird has been awarded one of the highest honors in his field by his colleagues, who recognized him for outstanding research and professional contributions to the discipline.

Read article


Nine Named To Fulbright US Student Program For 2023-24

UConn Today – Nine UConn students have been selected as recipients of a grant through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for the 2023-24 academic year. The program provides grants for individually designed study and research projects or for English teaching assistantships around the world. Students meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences.

Read article



One Year After the Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Can Businesses Prevent Future Wars?

UConn Today – The Russian invasion of Ukraine has captured the attention of Americans in ways that few other conflicts have, and created challenges that today’s business students will likely grapple with for the rest of their careers.

That’s the perspective of two leading business-ethics scholars who will be the guest panelists during a Feb. 20 program called “Business, Peace and the War in Ukraine: One Year Later.’’ It is part of the School of Business’ Equity Now speaker series that addresses prominent justice and human rights issues in business.



UConn’s EMBA Program Ranks No. 20 in the Nation

Shot of a mature businessman using a laptop in a modern office
(iStockphoto.com)

The UConn Executive MBA program is among the most elite in the nation, ranking among the Top 20 programs of its kind, according to Fortune.

The EMBA program earned its high ranking because of its ability to attract top students, its outstanding reputation among companies, and its alumni representation in senior management of Fortune 1000 companies.

The 2022-23 Best EMBA ranking puts UConn’s program at No. 20 out of the 55 programs that the publication ranked as outstanding.

“Our EMBA program was designed to cater to the unique needs of mid-career executives, who already have high level skills, and are looking to round out their experiences,” said David Souder, Associate Dean of the School of Business and former Academic Director of the program.

“We’ve maintained high admission standards in the program, and it isn’t unusual for our EMBA students to also have advanced degrees in nursing and law or to have already earned a doctorate,” he said. “Furthermore, our program has been thoughtfully designed to enhance collaboration between expert faculty and mature students. Our students learn both from their instructors but also from each other through team projects.”

Professor Stephen Park, who is currently the Academic Director of the EMBA program, said the program has a proud and enthusiastic alumni community that supports its current students.

“We deliberately leverage those close working relationships, and that’s something our students welcome,” Park said. “We don’t have specialized tracks in our program, but rather we offer soup-to-nuts exposure to what top leaders in an organization need to know.”

The UConn EMBA program is now accepting applicants for the Fall 2023 class. For more information, please visit emba.business.uconn.edu


Professor: Walt Disney Co. Chose Values Over Politics; Other Corporations May Face Similar Dilemmas

UConn Today – The Florida state legislature this week voted to end the Walt Disney Co.’s special tax district, which has permitted the Orlando amusement park to govern its land and save millions each year in taxes. UConn Today spoke with business law Professor Robert Bird, the Eversource Energy Chair in Business Ethics and past president of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, about the vote.