This survey discusses recent contributions to the quantitative literature on unsecured
consumer debt and default, and some ongoing challenges for the literature. Key topics …

Consumer bankruptcy is one of the largest social insurance programs in the United States,
but little is known about its impact on debtors. We use 500,000 bankruptcy filings matched to …

Consumer bankruptcy provides partial insurance against bad luck, but, by driving up interest
rates, makes life-cycle smoothing more difficult. We argue that to assess this trade-off one …

This paper extends the baseline framework used in recent quantitative studies of sovereign
default by assuming that the government can borrow using long-duration bonds. This …

We measure the effects of debt dilution on sovereign default risk and study debt covenants
that could mitigate these effects. We calibrate a baseline model with endogenous debt …

Since 2007, many fundamental aspects of the economy and the labor market have changed
dramatically. With the exception of Medicaid, subsidies flowing to the unemployed and …

I study the implications of two major debt-relief policies in the United States: the Bankruptcy
Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) and the Home Affordable …

Personal bankruptcies in the United States have increased dramatically, rising from 1.4 per
thousand working age adults in 1970 to 8.5 in 2002. We use a heterogeneous agent life …

We study the sovereign default model that has been used to account for the cyclical
behavior of interest rates in emerging market economies. This model is often solved using …

This paper estimates the effect of Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection on financial health using
a new data set linking bankruptcy filings to credit bureau records. Our empirical strategy …