Officials must show that they understand why and how the public's confidence in the federal government's ability to manage financial turmoil was lost. Leaders of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must face up to their institutions' roles in an...

Closed exchange and production-and-exchange economies may have multiple equilibria, a fact that is usually ignored in macroeconomic models. Our basic argument is that default and bankruptcy laws are required to prevent strategic default, and these laws can also serve to provide the conditions...

The possibility of the presence of multiple equilibria in closed exchange and production-and-exchange economies is usually ignored in macroeconomic models even though they are important in real economies. We argue that default and bankruptcy laws serve to provide the conditions for uniqueness of...

Closed exchange and production-and-exchange economies may have multiple equilibria, a fact that is usually ignored in macroeconomic models. Our basic argument is that default and bankruptcy laws are required to prevent strategic default, and these laws can also serve to provide the conditions...

This article provides the first indepth analysis of the homeownership experience of homeowners in bankruptcy. These homeowners are typically seriously delinquent on their mortgages at the time of filing. We measure how often they end up losing their houses in foreclosure, the time between...

We specify and estimate a lifecycle model of consumption, housing demand and labor supply in an environment where individuals may file for bankruptcy or default on their mortgage. Uncertainty in the model is driven by house price shocks, education specific productivity shocks, and catastrophic...