In 2005, bankruptcy laws were reformed significantly, making personal bankruptcy substantially more costly to file than before. Shortly after, the US began to experience its most severe recession in seventy years. While personal bankruptcy rates rose, they rose only modestly given the severity...

In this paper we aim to understand the evolution of household portfolios, defined broadly enough to include both human and financial wealth positions, over the life-cycle. A key feature of our approach is to include lumpy initial investments (formal education) and subsequent “on the...

Regulatory investigations affect information in financial markets through two channels: (i) investigations detect financial manipulation and reveal hidden negative information;(ii) regulatory investigations impose adverse consequences for executives involved in manipulation and deter managerial...