Consumer Bankruptcy: A Fresh Start
构建了一个包含生命周期、收入不确定性和支出冲击的定量模型，评估消费者破产的利弊，发现收入冲击的持续性对破产规则的影响截然不同，并指出当前美国破产制度在合理参数下可能是可取的。
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 needs a quantitative model of consumer bankruptcy with three key features: life-cycle component, idiosyncratic earnings uncertainty, and expense uncertainty (exogenous negative shocks to household balance sheets). We find that transitory and persistent earnings shocks have very different implications for evaluating bankruptcy rules. More persistent shocks make the bankruptcy option more desirable. Larger transitory shocks have the opposite effect. Our findings suggest the current US bankruptcy system may be desirable for reasonable parameter values.