Households Debt Restructuring: The Re-default Effects of a Debt Suspension
利用法国家庭债务委员会随机分配案件给管理者的机制，研究发现债务暂停虽能显著降低再次违约概率，但效果短暂，且取决于家庭特征和债务性质，暗示需更深入调整支出端。
When facing financial distress, French households can file a case to a “households’ over-indebtedness commission” (HDC). The HDC can order an immediate repayment or grant a debt suspension. Exploiting the random assignment of bankruptcy filings to managers, we show that a debt suspension has a very significant and negative effect on the likelihood to re-default but that this impact is only short-lived. The effect depends not only on the characteristics of the households but also on the nature of their indebtedness. Our results imply that rather than focusing on a specific debt profile, above all a deeper restructuring of the expenditure side is necessary to make the plan sustainable in case of an uniform increase of the HDC severity. They also single out specific banks lending to particular fragile households. They indicate the importance of policy actions on budget counseling, as well as the importance of regulation of credit distribution to avoid both entering into bankruptcy and re-filing for bankruptcy.