the empirical density of credit card interest rates has become much more disperse since 1983.

Consumer bankruptcy has increased more than 4-fold since 1980. Livshits, MacGee, and Tertilt (2006) show that a decline in the social stigma of bankruptcy together with a decline in the transactions cost of borrowing can account for both increased filings and increased unsecured borrowing by...

Personal bankruptcy filings have increased dramatically: rising from 1.4 in per thousand of working age population 1970 to 8.5 in 2002 in the United States and from 0.2 in 1970 to 4.3 in 2002 in Canada. This paper asks whether 6 commonly mentioned potential explanations -- financial innovation,...