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- Igor Livshits
- Department of Economics, University of Western Ontario, Social Science Centre, London, Ontario, N6A 5C2.
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- James MacGee
- Department of Economics, University of Western Ontario, Social Science Centre, London, Ontario, N6A 5C2.
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- Michèle Tertilt
- Department of Economics, Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-6072.
書誌事項
- 公開日
- 2007-02-01
- DOI
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- 10.1257/aer.97.1.402
- 公開者
- American Economic Association
この論文をさがす
説明
<jats:p>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. (JEL D14, D91, K35)</jats:p>
収録刊行物
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- American Economic Review
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American Economic Review 97 (1), 402-418, 2007-02-01
American Economic Association