This essay surveys important contributions to the economics of bankruptcy. It is an introductory chapter for a forthcoming volume (from Edward Elgar Press) that compiles the work of legal scholars as well as economists working in the field of corporate finance. The essay begins with the...

As the recent economic crisis has unfolded, bankruptcy has offered possible solutions at several key junctures. The first of these solutions, often referred to as mortgage modification, was geared toward homeowners who faced the loss of their homes in the months - now several years - since the...

We develop a model of a firm in financial distress. Distress can be mitigated by filing for bankruptcy, which is costly, or preempted by restructuring, which is impeded by a collective action problem. We find that bankruptcy and restructuring are complements, not substitutes: Reducing bankruptcy...

Bankruptcy has long been the standard approach to reorganizing failing corporate entities. In recent years, bailout has appeared as an alternative option, whereby a governmental entity takes charge of the reorganization. At the macro or systemic level, there is a Coase-like invariance...

A European directive requires Member States to give firms access to preventive restructuringprocedures. This paper assesses the interest of a procedure distinct from that for insolvent firms. Itis based on the French experience, where a preventive procedure has coexisted with the morecommon...

In recent years, a number of papers have established a new empirical regularity. Stocks of distressed firms vastly underperform those of financially healthy firms. It is not necessary to attribute the negative excess returns of distressed firms to inefficient or irrational markets. We show that...