Personal bankruptcies in the United States have increased dramatically, rising from 1.4 per thousand working age population in 1970 to 8.5 in 2002. We use a heterogeneous agent life-cycle model with competitive financial intermediaries who can observe households' earnings, age and current asset...

Although nation-based systems of financial regulation constitute a second-best approach to global welfare maximization, treacherous accountability problems must be acknowledged and resolved before regulatory cooperation can deal fairly and efficiently with cross-border issues. To track and...