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Race And Bankruptcy: Explaining Racial Disparities In Consumer Bankruptcy, Edward R. Morrison, Belisa Pang, Antoine Uettwiller
Race And Bankruptcy: Explaining Racial Disparities In Consumer Bankruptcy, Edward R. Morrison, Belisa Pang, Antoine Uettwiller
Faculty Scholarship
African American bankruptcy filers select Chapter 13 far more often than other debtors, who opt instead for Chapter 7, which has higher success rates and lower attorneys’ fees. Prior scholarship blames racial discrimination by attorneys. We propose an alternative explanation: Chapter 13 offers benefits, including retention of cars and driver’s licenses, that are more valuable to African American debtors because of relatively long commutes. We study a 2011 policy change in Chicago, which seized cars and suspended licenses of consumers with large traffic-related debts. The policy produced a large increase in Chapter 13 filings, especially by African Americans. Two mechanisms …
Manipulating Random Assignment: Evidence From Consumer Bankruptcies In The Nation's Largest Cities, Edward R. Morrison, Belisa Pang, Jonathon Zytnick
Manipulating Random Assignment: Evidence From Consumer Bankruptcies In The Nation's Largest Cities, Edward R. Morrison, Belisa Pang, Jonathon Zytnick
Faculty Scholarship
Random case assignment is thought to be an important feature of decision-making in federal courts because it helps guard against favoritism (actual or perceived) toward particular parties or types of cases. In bankruptcy courts, cases are randomly assigned to both judges and trustees. In Chapter 7 cases, for example, the trustee is a quasi-judicial actor, typically a private-sector lawyer, who has been selected to audit the debtor's finances, find and liquidate assets, and police compliance with the law. We study three major bankruptcy jurisdictions (covering Chicago, Los Angeles, and parts of New York) and find that the random-assignment process for …
Consumer Bankruptcy Pathologies, Edward R. Morrison, Antoine Uettwiller
Consumer Bankruptcy Pathologies, Edward R. Morrison, Antoine Uettwiller
Faculty Scholarship
This paper questions several long-standing descriptions of consumer bankruptcy in the United States. We focus on Chapter 13, which discharges debts after consumers pay disposable income to creditors for up to five years. Many studies document pathologies, including high failure rates, racial disparities, low creditor recoveries, and attorney biases. We observe the same patterns in new data drawn from Cook County, Illinois, but show that these pathologies are central tendencies that ignore substantial heterogeneity across consumers. Several pathologies are driven by subsets of consumers; some disappear once we take account of consumer heterogeneity. We present new evidence that some pathologies …
A Tale Of Two Debtors: Bankruptcy Disparities By Race, Rory Van Loo
A Tale Of Two Debtors: Bankruptcy Disparities By Race, Rory Van Loo
Faculty Scholarship
This article offers the first quantitative evidence on race and bankruptcy. Minority debtors fare worse overall in bankruptcy — blacks are 40% and Hispanics 43% less likely than whites to receive a discharge in Chapter 13 after controlling for variables such as education, income, and employment. While the data do not allow for causal inference, Chapter 13 trustees were twice as likely to have made a motion to dismiss even against black debtors who ultimately completed their multi-year bankruptcy plans than against similar white debtors. The paper also indicates that a lack of attorney representation by minority debtors may make …