Authors: Thomas Jackson & David Skeel
A striking feature of the recent economic crisis was the long period of subpar economic growth that continued even after the crisis had officially ended. Although discussion about how to spur economic recovery has focused on the efficacy of Keynesian stimulus spending, this is only one of many factors that might plausibly encourage growth. For a book entitled “Financial Restructuring to Sustain Recovery,” published by the Brookings Institution, we were asked to discuss the role that bankruptcy policy plays, or might play, in economic recovery.
After summarizing how bankruptcy posits a collective solution to a common pool problem of individual creditors and thereby improves the efficient use of assets, we consider two obstacles to its effectiveness. The first is that bankruptcy proceedings often seem to begin too late. The increased influence of debtors’ principal lenders probably counteracts this problem in part, but we suspect not fully. We consider a wide range of strategies that lawmakers might use to encourage timely filing, some of which are fairly simple, while others are more speculative.
The second major issue is the relationship between bankruptcy and jobs. The question whether bankruptcy should be used to protect jobs is a recurring theme that came to the fore most recently when the government used bankruptcy to bail out Chrysler, justifying its intervention as preserving jobs. We caution that distorting the standard bankruptcy rules—focused on efficient use of assets—to save jobs in the short run may have more problematic effects overall.
The full-length article can be found here.
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