Using a nationally representative panel of credit reports, we show that the 2001–2006 credit
boom and the 2007–2009 rise in mortgage defaults were concentrated among prime …

Households in developing economies have greater access to formal credit today than at any
point in history, owing to the global expansion of microfinance and recent innovations in …

We empirically establish that unemployed individuals maintain significant access to credit
and that upon a layoff, the unconstrained borrow while the constrained default and delever …

Rising costs of and returns to college have led to sizeable increases in the demand for
student loans in many countries. In the USA, student loan default rates have also risen for …

What is the role of credit scores in credit markets? We argue that it is, in part, the market's
assessment of a person's unobservable type, which here we take to be patience. We …

A more generous consumer bankruptcy system provides greater insurance against financial
risks but may also raise the cost of credit. We study this trade-off using the 2005 Bankruptcy …

This paper reviews and extends the literature on the costs and benefits of household debt
relief. Debt relief transfers resources from creditors or taxpayers to debtors. This transfer can …

This paper studies the role of moral hazard and liquidity in driving household bankruptcy.
First, I estimate that increases in potential debt forgiveness have a positive, but small, effect …

This paper estimates the effect of bankruptcy court caseload on access to credit by exploiting
firms' plausibly exogenous exposure to the largest recorded drop in court backlog in the …

We propose a theory of unsecured consumer credit where:(i) borrowers have the legal
option to default;(ii) defaulters are not exogenously excluded from future borrowing;(iii) there …