Bankruptcy is the legal process by which the debts of firms, individuals, and occasionally governments in financial distress are resolved. Bankruptcy law always includes three components. First, it provides a collective framework for simultaneously resolving all debts of the bankrupt entity,...

In this paper we examine the relationship between homeowners' bankruptcy decisions and their mortgage default decisions and the relationship between homeowners' bankruptcy decisions and lenders' decisions to foreclose. In theory, both relationships could be either substitutes or complements....

This paper examines how personal bankruptcy and bankruptcy exemptions affect the supply and demand for credit. While generous state-level bankruptcy exemptions are probably viewed by most policymakers as benefitting less-well-off borrowers, our results using data from the 1983 Survey of Consumer...

From 1980 to 2004, the number of personal bankruptcy filings in the United States increased more than five-fold, from 288,000 to 1.5 million per year. Lenders responded to the high filing rate with a major lobbying campaign for bankruptcy reform that led to the adoption in 2005 of the Bankruptcy...

This paper discusses four bankruptcy-related policy issues. First, what is the economic rationale for having a bankruptcy procedure at all and what defines an economically efficient bankruptcy procedure? Second, why did the number of U.S. bankruptcy filings increase so dramatically between 1980...

This paper examines how filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 helps financially distressed debtors save their homes. We develop a model of debtors' decisions to default on their mortgages and file for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 and evaluate the model using new data on Chapter 13 bankruptcy...

We assess the credit market impact of allowing mortgage "strip-down"--that is, reducing the principal of underwater residential mortgages to the current market value of the property for homeowners in Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Our identification is provided by a series of U.S. Circuit Court of...

The U.S. personal bankruptcy system functions as a bankruptcy system for small businesses as well as consumers, because debts of non-corporate firms are personal liabilities of the firms' owners. If the firm fails, the owner has an incentive to file for bankruptcy, since both business debts and...

This paper argues that the U.S. bankruptcy reform of 2005 played an important role in the mortgage crisis and the current recession. When debtors file for bankruptcy, credit card debt and other types of debt are discharged--thus loosening debtors' budget constraints. Homeowners in financial...