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 filers. We also examine the effect of allowing bankruptcy judges to …

market innovations which cause a decrease in the transactions cost of lending and a decline in the cost of bankruptcy can … largely accounting for the rise in consumer bankruptcy. We also argue that the abolition of usury laws and other legal changes …

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 … states. Thus, bankruptcy exemptions redistribute credit toward borrowers with high assets …

countercyclicality of bankruptcy filings found in U.S. data? Yes, it does, but only if we explicitly model recessions as displaying … bankruptcy risk discouraging households from using credit. This finding contradicts the intuition that access to credit helps …

Mortgage cramdown enabled bankruptcy judges to discharge the underwater portion of a mortgage during Chapter 13 … bankruptcy before the Supreme Court disallowed this practice in 1993. We exploit the random assignment of cases to judges to … quantify the ex-post effects of Chapter 13 bankruptcy over the period from 1989 to 1993. We find that a successful Chapter 13 …

This paper argues that the debt forgiveness provided by the U.S. consumer bankruptcy system helped stabilize employment … levels during the Great Recession. We document that over this period, states with more generous bankruptcy exemptions had …-post debt forgiveness provided by the consumer bankruptcy system during the Great Recession increased aggregate employment by …

Protection Act (BAPCPA), which raised the costs of filing for bankruptcy. We identify the effects of BAPCPA on borrowing costs by … reduced the likelihood that an uninsured hospitalization received bankruptcy relief by 70 percent. BAPCPA led to a decrease in …A more generous consumer bankruptcy system provides greater insurance against financial risks, but it may also raise …

The 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) is the most important reform of personal … the effects of the reform on bankruptcy, insolvency, and foreclosure, we explore the mechanism generating these responses … higher monetary cost of filing for bankruptcy. We show that insolvency is associated with worse outcomes than bankruptcy, in …