We investigate a new approach to the reform of U.S. personal bankruptcy law in which Chapters 7 and 13 would be combined. The proposed reform obliges debtors in bankruptcy to use part of both their wealth and their future earnings to repay debt and therefore bases the obligation to repay in...

This paper examines how forum shopping and procedural innovations affect the outcomes of asbestos trials using a new data set of all asbestos trials from 1987 to 2003. When lawsuits are filed in six particularly favorable jurisdictions, plaintiffs’ expected returns from trial are found to...

This paper examines how filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 helps financially distressed homeowners. We develop a model of debtors' decisions to default on their mortgages and file for bankruptcy and evaluate it using a new data set of debtors who filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 in...