Estimating the effect of the bankruptcy abuse prevention and consumer protection act of 2005 on the bankruptcy rate

American Bankruptcy Law Journal

Volumn 84, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 327-360

  Weller, Christian E ^a   Morzuch, Bernard J ^b   Logan, Amanda ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS   (United States)

^c CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 78149269375     PISSN: 00279048     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (68)

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16. 11 U.S.C. § 1090)
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32. National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, HACBA Analysis of More than 60,000 Consumas Processed under New Law Asks: "Where are the Deadbeats Congress Expected to Find and Stop with Onerous Rule Changes?(February 22,2006), available at http://wwwnacba.org/s/51-3caf66c7e772be2/ (last visited Aug. 11, 2010).
33. Kartik Athreya, Shame as it Ever Was: Stigma and Pasonal Bankruptcy, 90/2 FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF RICHMOND ECONOMIC QUARTERLY 1 (2004), available at http://ideas.repec.org/slfiplfedreq. html; Livshits, MacGee & Tertilt, supra note 16.
34. Lawless, supra note 16.
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36. Athreya, supra note 19; Athreya, Tam & Young, supra note 16;
37. Livshits, MacGee & Tertilt, supra note 16.
38. 23We conduct our analyses based on a separate definition of the bankruptcy rates, whereby we relate bankruptcy filings to the U.S. adult population. Current Population Survey, U.S. Census Bureau (2009), available at http://www.census.gov/cps/ (last visited August 17, 2010).
39. For details, see Christian E. Weller, Bernard Morzuch & Amanda Logan, Can We Quantify the Effect of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consuma Protection Act of 2005? (SSRN working paper, Social Science Research Network, 2008), available at http://paperssrn.com/so13/apers.cfm?abstract-id=1298632.
40. The appendix contains additional analyses through the end of 2009. 25Population statistics: Annual Population Estimates for the United States, Regions and States, and Puerto Rico, U.S. Census Bureau available at http://www.census.gov/cps/ (last visited August 17,2010).
41. Bankruptcy Statistics: QUARTERLY FILINGS: 3 months by Chapter and District, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, available at http://www.uscourts.gov/Statistics/BankruptcyStatistics.aspx (last visited August 17, 2010).
42. Id.
43. Id.
44. Pierre Perron, The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis, 57 ECONOMETRICA 1361-1401 (1989).
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46. 19See Weller, Morzuch & Logan, supra note 23 (providing additional tests that further underline the robustness of our results).
47. 30See Weller, Morzuch Sc Logan, supra note 23 (providing state level analyses that highlight the robustness of these results and showing changes in the ratio of Chapter 13 to Chapter 7 filings). "Perron, supra note 28.
48. Results are included in the technical appendix and are not shown here.
49. The detailed results are not shown here, but are available from the authors upon request.
50. This gap is not statistically significant. See appendix for detaills.
51. This is an imperfect relationship since BAPCPA put stricter limits on when a filer can use a state's homestead exemption. See text at footnote 12.
52. Perron, supra note 28; Zivot & Andrews, supra note 28.
53. Perron, supra note 28.
54. Perron, supra note 28; Zivot & Andrews, supra note 28.
55. Perron, supra note 28.
56. Perron, supra note 28; Zivot & Andrews, supra note 28.
57. Weller, Morzuch & Logan, supra note 23 (providing additional tests based on a different definition of the bankruptcy rate and showing robustness through use of Perron's methodology for exogenously defined breaks). See Perron, supra note 28.
58. Perron, supra note 28.
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61. State and Local Area Pasonal Income, Bureau of Economic Analysis (2010), available at http:// www.bea.gov/national/indexhtmxpersonal (last visited August 17, 2010).
62. U.S. Census, supra note 23.
63. See Weller, Morzuch & Logan, supra note 23 (providing additional details on a different definition of the bankruptcy rate, specifically bankruptcy filings as a percentage of the adult population).
64. Franklin A. Fischer, Tests of Equality Between Sets of Coefficients in Two Linear Regressions: An Expository Note, 38 Econometrica 361-366 (1970).
65. We explored several different univariate forecasting methods. Holt's method addresses level and trend, which seemed to perform best of all the competitors.
66. 50OnIy results for the number of bankruptcy filings relative to households are shown. The results for bankruptcy filings relative to the population 20 years old and over are generally robust. Richard Ashley, On the Usefulness of Macroeconomic Forecasts as Inputs to Forecasting Models,2 J. OF FORECASTING, 211-223 (1983);
67. Richard Ashley, On the Optimal Use of Suboptimal Forecasts of Explanatory Variables, 3 J.BUS. & ECON. STAT. 129-131 (1985).
68. Ashley (1983), supra note 50.