During 2004-06 Bolivia experienced a five-fold increase in oil revenues due to tax/contractual innovations, higher prices and larger volumes at the same time that a multi-lateral debt reduction initiative trimmed roughly one third of the public external debt. The political economy setting of...

How do persistent cash flow shocks affect debt repayment across the distribution of households? Using individual data on natural gas shale royalty payments matched with credit bureau data for 215,639 consumers, we estimate that individuals repay 33 cents of debt per dollar of windfall, and that...