This paper uses a principal/agent framework to analyze consumer bankruptcy. The bankruptcy discharge partly insures risk averse borrowers against bad income realizations, but also reduces the borrower's incentive to avoid insolvency. Among our results are: (a) High bankruptcy exemptions increase...

This paper explores how the opportunity to recontract affects investment and trade in contractual relationships when it is assumed that renegotiation is costly. In this world, recontracting retains much of the benefit that has been ascribed to it, including the realization of any surplus that is...

We consider legal rules that determine the price at which minority shareholders can be excluded from the corporate enterprise after a change in control. These rules affect investment after such a change as well as the probability of the change itself. Our principal results are that minority...

The fees of experts (financial advisors, lawyers, accountants) are a substantial fraction of bankruptcy costs. Scholars have considered how best to reduce these costs, but have not considered how they should be allocated among creditors. The allocation issue is important because creditors can...

Parties to lending agreements can create priority rankings in two ways: by securing a lender or by protecting the lender's debt with financial covenants. Protected debt turns into high priority debt because the early lender will permit covenant violations only if a later lender agrees to...

Parties to lending agreements can create priority rankings in two ways: by securing a lender or by protecting the lender's debt with financial covenants. Protected debt turns into high priority debt because the early lender will permit covenant violations only if a later lender agrees to...

The regulatory compliance defense holds firms liable whose products or product warnings fail to satisfy federal regulatory standards, but does not exculpate firms that comply. Rather, compliance is relevant evidence for a jury to consider in a products liability action. This article argues that...

Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits enforcement of the once common "ipso facto" clause." The clause excuses the solvent party from performance of the contract when the other party becomes insolvent. We show that the ability of insolvent firms to continue bad projects is enhanced by the...

Creditors and the insolvent firm are required to use the state supplied bankruptcy procedure if they cannot agree on a private resolution after financial distress has occurred. While these ex post workouts are legal, parties cannot agree in the lending contracts to use a bankruptcy procedure...