The introduction of American ideas of consumer bankruptcy in European continental civil law systems appears to present an opportunity to resolve some of the paradoxes of paternalism analysed by Ogus. Bankruptcy law for individuals in Europe has evolved from a neglected field of procedural civil...

Is financial literacy a substitute or complement for financial advice? In this paper we analyze the decision by consumers to seek financial advice in the form of credit counseling concerning their credit and debt. Credit counseling is an important component of the consumer credit sector for...

We document the cyclical properties of unsecured consumer credit (procyclical and volatile) and of consumer bankruptcies (countercyclical and very volatile). Using a growth model with household heterogeneity in earnings and assets with access to unsecured credit (because of bankruptcy costs) and...

Financial contracts are complicated and consumers often do not grasp them in their entirety. This may lead to financial mistakes. We develop a quantitative theory of unsecured credit and equilibrium default in a market with sophisticated and naïve borrowers who sometimes misunderstand their...

During the three decades following the enactment of the Bankruptcy Code, courts and commentators have been vexed by the problem of determining the present value of future payments to creditors proposed in a debtor's repayment plan. The central issue to this problem has been the discount rate to...

Empirical research in bankruptcy has expanded rapidly in the past twenty years. The increase in scholars interested in the subject, the ease of obtaining relevant data from court files, and new technological developments have contributed to this expansion.However, the expansion of this research...