“Sharing Risk: The Flip Side of the Affordability Debate”
A Zoom Conversation with Patricia A. McCoy '76, Professor of Law at Boston College Law School
Today, lack of affordability is dominating the headlines, particularly for lower- and middle-income households. What is rarely mentioned is the other side of the coin: that half or more of U.S. families make too little income to cover their basic expenses, regardless of inflation. Patricia McCoy looks at the income side of the equation in her latest book Sharing Risk: The Path to Economic Well-Being for All. She asks, what is the best way to assure economic well-being to families, and argues that the nation should expand risk-sharing mechanisms (including social insurance) to pool and spread the heavy financial risks that now fall on households.
Patricia McCoy ’76 teaches at Boston College Law School, where she writes on financial services, consumer welfare, and systemic risk. In 2010-2011, the Treasury Department appointed her as the first Assistant Director of Mortgage Markets at the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Washington, D.C., where she oversaw all of the Bureau’s mortgage policy analyses and initiatives. She has also served on the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board, the Advisory Council on Economic Inclusion of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Reserve’s Insurance Policy Advisory Council. Patricia majored in Government at Oberlin and received her J.D. from U.C. Berkeley in 1983.
