The 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) includes two educational provisions which require debtors to complete an approved credit counseling course prior to filing for bankruptcy and a financial education course prior to the discharge. Recent debates have raised...

In addition to their direct effects, episodes of financial instability may decrease investor confidence. Measuring the impact of a crisis on investor confidence is complicated by the fact that it is difficult to disentangle the effects on investor confidence from coincident direct effects of the...

This article rejects the linkages in proposals that the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) target equity prices. The real federal funds rate (RFF) and stock prices (SP) are uncorrelated; causality tests show a positive effect of SP on RFF and a negative effect of SP on RFF. These results occur as part of...

The financial sector incurred big losses during the recent financial collapse and recession. The losses occurred despite regulatory requirements imposed upon the financial services industry meant to ensure confidence and stability. This study analyzes the profitability and stock returns of...

A popular and highly politicized theme today is that US workers are falling behind as their real wages fall and income gets redistributed to the rich. This article looks at some reasons that income inequality could rise, and then explores whether, in fact, workers are losing out. It looks at the...

Globalization has given rise to new concerns that domestic inflation is caused by global developments, especially in the state of the global gap in GDP and resource utilization, and whether domestic monetary policy can control it. This paper explores the role of globalization, if any, for...

This paper analyzes 26 studies that assess the impact of financial education and counseling targeted to low- and moderate-income consumers. Most studies report significant and positive findings, but the magnitude of impacts is often small compared to a control group. The evidence of behavior...

We study a new and unique data set of daily aggregate transfers of funds between mutual funds held in 401(k) accounts. We find that 401(k) transfers correlate strongly and positively with contemporaneous daily returns in the corresponding asset class. GMM estimation based on the...

We find that wealthier and more educated immigrants are more likely to make use of basic banking services and other formal financial services. Holding these (and other) factors constant, we find immigrants from countries with more effective institutions are more likely to have a relationship...

This paper summarizes lessons from interviews of 22 consumers who use prepaid cards (PPCs), an emerging product in the market space between institution-based transaction accounts and non-account services like check-cashing and money orders. A majority of interviewees used PPCs as their primary...