Did Bankruptcy Reform Cause Mortgage Defaults to Rise?
研究发现2005年破产改革使破产对房主不利，导致优质和次级抵押贷款违约率分别上升23%和14%，改革在金融危机前就将违约率推高了一个百分点。
Homeowners in financial distress can use bankruptcy to avoid defaulting on their mortgages, since filing loosens their budget constraints. But the 2005 bankruptcy reform made bankruptcy less favorable to homeowners and therefore caused mortgage defaults to rise. We test this relationship and find that the reform caused prime and subprime mortgage default rates to rise by 23% and 14%, respectively. Default rates rose even more for homeowners who were particularly negatively affected by the reform. We calculate that bankruptcy reform caused mortgage default rates to rise by one percentage point even before the start of the financial crisis.