This paper estimates the impact of a bad credit report on financial outcomes by exploiting exogenous variation in the timing of credit flag removals. Credit flags are removed from credit reports after seven years, generating an immediate change in the information available to the credit market....

This paper demonstrates the important role of job displacement in the household bankruptcy decision. I develop a dynamic, forward-looking model of unemployment and bankruptcy where persistent negative income shocks increase a household's likelihood of filing for bankruptcy both immediately and...

How do lenders of unsecured credit use screening and contract design to mitigate the risks of information asymmetry and limited commitment in the absence of collateral? To address this question, we take advantage of a unique dataset of over 200,000 credit card mail solicitations to a...

Using a unique dataset of credit card mailings, we show that during the recent credit boom, consumers with mediocre credit scores received more credit card solicitations than those with high credit scores. However, this relationship reversed after the financial crisis. We also nd that consumers...