In many countries, lenders are restricted in their access to information about borrowers' past defaults. The authors study this provision in a model of repeated borrowing and lending with moral hazard and adverse selection. They analyze its effects on borrowers' incentives and access to credit,...

In many countries, lenders are not permitted to use information about past defaults after a specified period of time has elapsed. We model this provision and determine conditions under which it is optimal. We develop a model in which entrepreneurs must repeatedly seek external funds to finance a...

This paper finds that stricter laws regulating third-party debt collection reduce the number of third-party debt collectors, lower the recovery rates on delinquent credit card loans, and lead to a modest decrease in the openings of new revolving lines of credit. Further, stricter third-party...

The purpose of this paper is to identify possible sources of the secular decline in the job separation rate over the past four decades. I use a simple labor matching model with two types of workers, experienced and inexperienced, where the former type faces a risk of skill loss during...

(supersedes WP 15-29)The rate of job loss has been on a secular decline for the last four decades or longer. Changes in demographics or industry composition do not account for the trend. This paper seeks to identify possible sources of this decline using a simple labor matching model with two...

Superseded by 18-06. The purpose of this paper is to identify possible sources of the secular decline in the job separation rate over the past four decades. I use a simple labor matching model with two types of workers, experienced and inexperienced, where the former type faces a risk of skill...

This paper uses CPS gross flow data, adjusted for margin error and time aggregation error, to analyze the business cycle dynamics of separation and job finding rates and to quantify their contributions to overall unemployment variability. Cyclical changes in the separation rate lead those of...

This paper establishes robust cyclical features of the U.S. labor market by estimating VAR models of the job loss rate, job finding rate, and vacancies. To identify the aggregate business cycle shock, the author adopts the agnostic Bayesian identification approach developed by Uhlig (2005) and...

Drawing on CPS data, the authors show that total monthly job loss and hiring among U.S. workers, as well as job loss hazard rates, are strongly countercyclical, while job finding hazard rates are strongly procyclical. They also find that total job loss and job loss hazard rates lead the business...

The purpose of this paper is to identify possible sources of the secular decline in the aggregate job separation rate over the last three decades. The author first shows that aging of the labor force alone cannot account for the entire decline. To explore other sources, he uses a simple labor...