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Mallory E. SoRelle

Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Duke University
Chapter Member: North Carolina SSN
Areas of Expertise:

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About Mallory

SoRelle is an Assistant Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Her research and teaching explore how public policies are produced by; and critically how they reproduce; socioeconomic; and political inequality in the United States. She focuses primarily on issues like consumer financial protection and access to civil justice that fundamentally shape the welfare of marginalized communities yet are often overlooked by scholars of the welfare state because they are not traditional redistributive programs. Mallory is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection.

In the News

Opinion: "Both Democrats and Republicans Care about States’ Rights - When it Suits Them," Mallory E. SoRelle (with Alexis N. Walker), The Washington Post, June 23, 2017.

Publications

"Democracy Declined" (The University of Chicago Press Books, 2020).

Argues that the failure of federal policy makers to curb risky practices can be explained by the evolution of consumer finance policies aimed at encouraging easy credit in part by foregoing more stringent regulation. Explains how angry borrowers’ experiences with these policies teach them to focus their attention primarily on banks and lenders instead of demanding that lawmakers address predatory behavior.