The Blackjewel Coal bankruptcy of summer 2019 exposed critical weaknesses in our state-based system of employee creditor protection. Notwithstanding employees' priority over other unsecured creditors in bankruptcy, and notwithstanding a bonding requirement imposed by the State of Kentucky,...

The substantial costs of foreclosures to individuals and society motivated nearly $40 billion in government subsidies to homeowners during the Great Recession. Most of these subsidies were in the form of permanent loan modifications with mixed evidence of effectiveness. This paper estimates the...

In this paper we analyze the relationship between strictness of employment protection and efficiency of bankruptcy law. We argue that country's legal tradition provides the appropriate institutional proxy to explain the nature of such relationship. We find that for civil law countries where...