Formal vs. Informal Default in Consumer Credit

Xavier Mateos-Planas and David Benjamin ()
Additional contact information
Xavier Mateos-Planas: Queen Mary University of London

No 144, 2012 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: This paper studies informal default in consumer credit as the start of a process of negotiation with the lender. We consider an economy with uninsurable individual risk where households in debt have also the option of declaring formal bankruptcy. In a calibrated version of the model, informal defaulters are notably wealthier, have lower income, and hold more debt than formal defaulters, an implication consistent with the evidence. Quick settlements are achieved often, with limited discounts. Protracted negotiations feature individuals disaving before they reach agreement or declare bankruptcy. Allowing for negotiations raises default rates but substantially improves welfare as it provides greater insurance opportunities. Thus lowering the cost of informal default, as opposed to that of formal default, raises welfare and dampens consumption volatility. A tighter exemption improves welfare as the bargaining option mitigates the adverse effect on insurance via formal bankruptcy. Attempts at limiting collection outside bankruptcy reduce the incidence of bankruptcy but lower overall welfare.

Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2012/paper_144.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:red:sed012:144

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2012 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics Society for Economic Dynamics Marina Azzimonti Department of Economics Stonybrook University 10 Nicolls Road Stonybrook NY 11790 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christian Zimmermann ().