Using a comprehensive panel dataset on U.S. households, we study the effects of the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), the most substantive reform of personal bankruptcy in the United States since the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. The 2005 legislation...

Studies continue to indicate that higher education is frequently a worthwhile investment for individuals and that it raises the productivity of the workforce as a whole. While the rising cost of post-secondary education has not eliminated this "college premium," it has raised new questions about...

Debit cards are overtaking credit cards as the most prevalent form of electronic payment at the point of sale, yet the determinants of a ubiquitous consumer choice - "debit or credit?" - have received relatively little scrutiny. Several stylized facts suggest that debit-card use is driven by...

Remarks at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, at the Waldorf Astoria, New York City.

Young Americans’ residence choices have changed markedly over the past fifteen years, with recent cohorts entering the housing market at lower rates, and lingering much longer in parents’ households. This paper begins with descriptive evidence on the residence choices of 1 percent of young...

Remarks at the Barclays Global Inflation Conference, New York City.

This paper sheds new light on the interactions between business cycles and the consumption distribution. We use Consumer Expenditure Survey data and a factor model to characterize the cyclical dynamics of the consumption distribution. We first establish that our approach is able to closely match...

Remarks at the Quarterly Regional Economic Press Briefing, New York City.

Remarks at the New York Association for Business Economics, New York City.

Remarks at the Household Debt and Credit Press Briefing, New York City.