Rising costs of and returns to college have led to sizeable increases in the demand for student loans in many countries. In the U.S., student loan default rates have also risen for recent cohorts as labor market uncertainty and debt levels have increased. We discuss these trends as well as...

More than low default rates, lenders are interested in the expected return on their loans. In this paper, we consider a number of other measures of repayment and nonpayment that are likely to be of direct interest to lenders. Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, we...

We study the accumulation of human capital and the behavior of consumption and earnings in a life cycle equilibrium model with endogenous borrowing constraints. Constraints arise endogenously from the inalienability of human capital and the limited punishments that creditors are able to impose...

This paper studies the nature and impact of credit constraints in the market for human capital. We derive endogenous constraints from the design of government student loan programs and from the limited repayment incentives in private lending markets. These constraints imply cross-sectional...

We review studies of the impact of credit constraints on the accumulation of human capital. Evidence suggests that credit constraints are increasingly important for schooling and other aspects of households' behavior. We highlight the importance of early childhood investments, since their...

We review studies of the impact of credit constraints on the accumulation of human capital. Evidence suggests that credit constraints have recently become important for schooling and other aspects of households' behavior. We highlight the importance of early childhood investments, as their...

We use new administrative data that links detailed information on Canadian student loan recipients with their repayment and income histories from the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP), income tax filings, and post-secondary schooling records to measure the extent to which student borrowers...