The Political Economy of Property Exemption Laws
研究了美国各州为何选择退出联邦破产豁免体系，发现州豁免水平低、破产率高且对穷人转移支付少的州更可能退出，这对理解豁免法的经济影响有重要启示。
Exemption laws enable people who default on loans to protect certain assets from liquidation. Every state has its own set of exemption laws, and they vary widely. The 1978 federal bankruptcy law contains a set of national exemptions, which debtors in bankruptcy are permitted to use instead of their state’s exemptions unless the state has formally “opted out” of the federal system. We contend that states’ decisions to opt out shed light on their exemption levels. We find that states are more likely to opt out if their state exemption is lower than the federal exemption and that states are more likely to opt out if they also have a high bankruptcy filing rate and transfer little money to the poor. These latter findings suggest that studies that examine the impact of exemptions on, for example, the bankruptcy rate should not treat exemption levels as exogenous variables.