In many countries, lenders are restricted in their access to information about borrowers' past defaults. The authors study this provision in a model of repeated borrowing and lending with moral hazard and adverse selection. They analyze its effects on borrowers' incentives and access to credit,...

This paper, for the first time investigates the effects of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 on subprime mortgage performance. Based on a large mortgage dataset, the study quantifies that the new legislation successfully reduces the number of subprime mortgage...

In many countries, lenders are not permitted to use information about past defaults after a specified period of time has elapsed. We model this provision and determine conditions under which it is optimal. We develop a model in which entrepreneurs must repeatedly seek external funds to finance a...

Using a unique dataset of credit card mailings, we show that during the recent credit boom, consumers with mediocre credit scores received more credit card solicitations than those with high credit scores. However, this relationship reversed after the financial crisis. We also nd that consumers...

We study the financial and labor market impacts of bad credit reports. Using difference-in-differences variation from the staggered removal of bankruptcy flags, we show that bankruptcy flag removal leads to economically large increases in credit limits and borrowing. Using administrative tax...

Why do negative credit events lead to long-term borrowing constraints? Exploiting banking regulations in Peru and utilizing currency movements, we show that consumers who face a credit rating downgrade due to bad luck experience a three-year reduction in financing. Consumers respond to the shock...

Bankruptcy reform in 2005 eliminated debtors' ability to discharge private student loan debt in bankruptcy. This law aimed to reduce costly defaults by diminishing the perceived incentive of some private student loan borrowers to declare bankruptcy even if they had sufficient income to service...

Many credit cardholders in the U.S. turn to expensive payday loans, even though they have not yet exhausted their credit lines. This results in significant monetary costs and has been coined the “Payday Loan Puzzle.” We propose the novel explanation that households use payday loans to...

This paper uses a unique data set from credit files of six leading German banks to provide some empirical insights into their rating systems used to classify corporate borrowers. On the basis of the New Basle Capital Accord, which allows banks to use their internal rating systems to compute...

This paper proposes a rating methodology that is based on a non-linear classification method, the support vector machine, and a non-parametric technique for mapping rating scores into probabilities of default. We give an introduction to underlying statistical models and represent the results of...