instrumental variables to control for the endogeneity of restructuring time and creditor return. Instrumenting proves critical to … thereafter. This, and similar results using the likelihood of reentering bankruptcy, suggest that there may be an optimal time in … results have implications for the reform and design of bankruptcy systems. …

In this paper, I construct a model of an exchange economy in which bankruptcy arises in a manner similar to what we … highlight some welfare effects of bankruptcy. …

This paper demonstrates the important role of job displacement in the household bankruptcy decision. I develop a … dynamic, forward-looking model of unemployment and bankruptcy where persistent negative income shocks increase a household …'s likelihood of filing for bankruptcy both immediately and in the future. Consistent with the model's predictions, I find that …

Are consumers who have filed for personal bankruptcy before excluded from the unsecured credit market? Using a unique … default risk--those with a bankruptcy history. On average, over one-fifth of personal bankruptcy filers receive at least one … offer in a given month, with the likelihood being even higher for those who filed for bankruptcy within the previous two …

Consumer bankruptcy laws, which vary across states and over time, permit debtors to keep assets below a statutory … debts, but they also provide a crude form of consumption insurance. We combine information on state-level bankruptcy laws … bankruptcy rates, (2) households that are more likely to simultaneously hold low-return liquid assets and owe high-cost unsecured …

The recent explosion in personal bankruptcy filings has motivated research into whether credit markets are being … bankruptcy exemptions across states. We note that the literature has focused on aggregate household credit, making no distinction …

The key feature of the modern U.S. personal bankruptcy law is to provide debtors a financial fresh start through debt …. In this paper, we test this fresh start argument by providing the first estimate of the effect of personal bankruptcy … the endogenous self-selection of bankruptcy filing and allows for dependence over time for the same household. We find …

by estimating the structural parameters of a canonical debt-contracting model with informational frictions. For this … obtain precise time-specific estimates of the bankruptcy cost parameter and consistently reject the null hypothesis of …