Debt moratoria that allow borrowers to postpone loan payments are a frequently used tool intended to soften the impact of economic crises. This paper reports results from a nationwide experiment with a large consumer lender in India, designed to study how debt forbearance offers affect loan...

Consumers can use loans to smooth consumption after suffering financial shocks. However, payday loans may catch some consumers in a debt trap that leads to financial collapse. Critics claim that payday lenders target minority and military communities, making these groups especially vulnerable to...

In this paper we empirically explore the relationship between debt and output in a panel of 72 countries over the period 1970-2014 using a vector autoregression (VAR). We document two puzzling empirical findings that contrast with what is predicted by a standard small open economy model by...