Personal Bankruptcy in the U.S.: Legal and Economic Issues

9319960白色这个项目旨在发展一个更好的科学理解的因素，导致人们申请个人破产。 1992年，约有90万个人和已婚夫妇申请个人破产，比1984年增加了三倍。 每个公司破产大约有10个人破产，贷款人在个人破产中的损失比在公司破产中的损失更多。 但是，尽管公司破产受到了多个领域研究者的广泛关注，但经济学家对个人破产的研究却很少。 该项目有几个目标：通过模拟个人申请破产的决定，通过测试信贷市场是否对个人破产法的具体特征做出反应，以及通过分析美国个人破产法的可能改革，来增加对个人破产的理解。 本课题的一部分是构建个体家庭破产决策的理论模型。 它将与贷款人的行为模型相结合，产生一个信贷市场模型，可用于从经济效率的角度分析当前的美国破产政策。 该项目的第二部分涉及实证检验借款人的信贷需求和贷款人的贷款意愿是否因借款人居住州的个人破产法的具体特点而异。 这些研究的数据将来自消费者金融调查，并补充有关各州破产豁免的信息。 理论模型和实证研究将结合起来，并用于分析可能的改革，美国个人破产法。 ***

9319960 WHITE This project seeks to develop a better scientific understanding of the factors that lead people to file for personal bankruptcy. About 900,000 individuals and married couples filed for personal bankruptcy in 1992, a three-fold increase since 1984. There are about 10 personal bankruptcies for each corporate bankruptcy and lenders lose more in personal bankruptcies than in corporate bankruptcies. But while corporate bankruptcy has received extensive attention from researchers in several fields, there has been little research by economists on personal bankruptcy. This project has several aims: to increase understanding of personal bankruptcy by modeling individuals' decisions to file for bankruptcy, by testing whether credit markets are responsive to specific features of personal bankruptcy law, and by analyzing possible reforms to U.S. personal bankruptcy law. One part of this project involves constructing a theoretical model of individual households' bankruptcy decisions. It will be combined with a model of lenders' behavior to produce a model of the credit market that can be used to analyze current U.S. bankruptcy policy from an economic efficiency standpoint. A second part of the project involves empirically testing whether borrowers' demand for credit and lenders' willingness to lend vary depending on specific features of personal bankruptcy law in the state where the borrower lives. Data for the studies will come from the Survey of Consumer Finance, supplemented with information concerning each state's bankruptcy exemptions. The theoretical model and the empirical study will be combined and used to analyze possible reforms to U.S. personal bankruptcy law. ***