Bankruptcy and Small Firms' Access to Credit
研究个人破产法如何影响小企业信贷可得性，发现高破产豁免水平增加非公司制企业被拒贷概率，但不影响公司制企业；先前破产申请使非公司制企业被拒贷概率提高近两倍。
In this paper, we investigate whether and how personal bankruptcy law affects small firms' access to credit. When a firm is unincorporated, its debts are personal liabilities of the firm's owner, so that lending to the firm is equivalent to lending to its owner. If the firm fails, the owner has an incentive to file for personal bankruptcy in order to obtain discharge of the firm's debts. While bankruptcy law is uniform across the country, states are allowed to set their own bankruptcy exemption levels and they vary widely. The higher the exemption level, the more attractive it is for debtors who live in that state to file for bankruptcy, because they can keep more of their assets while obtaining discharge of their own and the firm's debts. The paper presents a theoretical model of credit markets which shows that supply of credit falls and demand for credit rises when non-corporate firms are located in states with higher bankruptcy exemption levels. We test the model using the NSSBF and find that high homestead and personal property exemptions exemptions are associated with an increased probability of non-corporate firms being denied credit, but do not affect the probability of corporate firms being denied credit. We also find weak evidence that both types of firms receive smaller loans when they are located in states that have high bankruptcy exemptions, but we find no evidence that interest rates are affected by bankruptcy exemptions. We also test for the effect of a prior bankruptcy filing by non-corporate firms or their owners on access to credit and find that a prior ling nearly triples the probability that these firms are denied credit.