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Individual Bankruptcy: Preliminary Findings Of A Socio-Legal Analysis, Iain D. C. Ramsay
Individual Bankruptcy: Preliminary Findings Of A Socio-Legal Analysis, Iain D. C. Ramsay
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article presents preliminary findings from an empirical study of individuals who filed for bankruptcy in the Toronto bankruptcy district in 1994. The central findings are that bankrupts are both asset- and income-poor at the time of declaring bankruptcy, and have much higher ratios of debt-to-income than the general population. Bankrupts are not drawn solely from low status occupations, but neither are they drawn significantly from the highest status occupations. The major reasons for declaring bankruptcy are adverse employment changes and business failure. There has been a large rise in the number of women declaring bankruptcy since earlier studies in …
Consumer Bankruptcy In Comparison: Do We Cure A Market Failure Or A Social Problem, Johanna Niemi-Kiesilainen
Consumer Bankruptcy In Comparison: Do We Cure A Market Failure Or A Social Problem, Johanna Niemi-Kiesilainen
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
The Continental European and Scandinavian bankruptcy laws did not have provisions enabling the discharge of debt until quite recently. While bankruptcy law did not specifically exclude consumer debtors, in the absence of discharge, consumer bankruptcy was meaningless and rare. After the deregulation of credit markets in the 1980s, many west European countries faced a huge increase in consumer debt problems. Several countries passed consumer debt adjustment laws during the late 1980s and 1990s. Unlike the North American consumer bankruptcy laws, the European laws attach moral attributes to the access to adjustment procedures, which require a mandatory payment plan, and offer …