This paper argues that the debt forgiveness provided by the U.S. consumer bankruptcy system helped stabilize employment levels during the Great Recession. We document that over this period, states with more generous bankruptcy exemptions had significantly smaller declines in non-tradable...

This paper argues that the debt forgiveness provided by the U.S. consumer bankruptcy system helped stabilize employment levels during the Great Recession. We document that over this period, states with more generous bankruptcy exemptions had significantly smaller declines in non-tradable...

Between 1919 and 1946 bankruptcy rates in the U.S. traced out an inverted U-shaped curve, rising during the 1930s as income levels fell, and then plummeting during the Second World War in the face of both rising income and falling debt levels. This paper explores these relationships...

Between 1919 and 1946 bankruptcy rates in the United States traced out an inverted U-shaped curve, rising during the 1920s as debt levels increased, remaining high in the 1930s as income levels fell, and then plummeting during the Second World War in the face of both rising income and falling...

In this paper we empirically explore the relationship between debt and output in a panel of 72 countries over the period 1970-2014 using a vector autoregression (VAR). We document two puzzling empirical findings that contrast with what is predicted by a standard small open economy model by...

We use an agent-based stock-flow consistent model of a closed economy without technological change that considers different classes of households, status consumption and a Minskyan banking sector to analyze the relationship between rising saving rates, the accumulation and distribution of...