Publications

January 2005
Case

Managing Failure: American Bankruptcy Law at a Crossroads

By: David A. Moss, Mary Oey and Jonathan Lackow

Introduces the core principles and challenges of bankruptcy law (both individual and corporate) against the backdrop of the early 1970s, when the U.S. bankruptcy system appeared to be failing. With personal bankruptcy filings at record levels and successful corporate... View Details

Keywords: Change; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Policy; Government Legislation; United States

Article

Myth and Measurement—The Case of Medical Bankruptcies

By: Raymond Kluender, Carlos Dobkin, Amy Finkelstein and Matthew Notowidigdo

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July 1984
Supplement

Braniff International: The Ethics of Bankruptcy (B)

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

May 2008
Article

Coerced Confessions: Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Regulator

By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

As part of a recent trend toward more cooperative relations between regulators and industry, novel government programs are encouraging firms to monitor their own regulatory compliance and voluntarily report their own violations. In this study, we examine how regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Law Enforcement; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Environmental Sustainability; Programs; Power and Influence; Organizations; Decisions; Business and Government Relations; United States

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winter 2007
Article

Bargaining in the Shadow of PeopleSoft's (Defective) Poison Pill

By: Guhan Subramanian

Keywords: Negotiation; Software; Information Technology Industry

March 2009
Background Note

Note on the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA)

By: Stuart C. Gilson

In 2005, new legislation was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the President that introduced a number of major amendments to U.S. bankruptcy law, affecting both business and consumer bankruptcies. This legislation, called the Bankruptcy Abuse... View Details

Keywords: Government Legislation; Restructuring; Personal Finance; Laws and Statutes; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Corporate Finance

December 2024
Article

Are Bankruptcy Professional Fees Excessively High?

By: Samuel Antill

Chapter 7 is the most popular bankruptcy system for U.S. firms and individuals. Chapter 7 professional fees are substantial. Theoretically, high fees might be an unavoidable cost of incentivizing professionals. I test this empirically. I study trustees, the most... View Details

Keywords: Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Motivation and Incentives; Policy

March 2009 (Revised January 2025)
Background Note

A Strait of Uncertainty: Taiwan's Development in the Shadow of China

By: William C. Kirby, J. Megan Greene, Tracy Yuen Manty, Daniel Fu, Yuanzhuo Wang, Noah B. Truwit and Aqib Zakaria

Relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on the Chinese Mainland, and the Republic of China (ROC), on Taiwan, had improved significantly since 2008. Taiwan investment in China had played a major role in China’s economic boom in recent decades. ... View Details

Keywords: History; Development Economics; Investment; Economic Growth; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Financial Crisis; China; Taiwan

March 2012
Article

Subprime Foreclosures and the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform

By: Donald Morgan, Benjamin Iverson and Matthew Botsch

This article presents arguments and evidence suggesting that the bankruptcy abuse reform (BAR) of 2005 may have been one contributor to the destabilizing surge in subprime foreclosures. Before BAR took effect, overly indebted borrowers could file bankruptcy to free up... View Details

Keywords: Mortgages; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Borrowing and Debt; United States

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09 Feb 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Cashing Out: The Rise of M&A in Bankruptcy

Keywords: by Stuart Gilson, Edith Hotchkiss & Matthew Osborn

13 Oct 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Coerced Confessions: Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Regulator

Keywords: by Jodi L. Short & Michael W. Toffel

December 2020 (Revised September 2023)
Case

PG&E and the First Climate Change Bankruptcy

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

In early 2020, the California-based utility PG&E filed a second amended plan of reorganization. PG&E had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the face of more than $30 billion of legal claims brought against it for its alleged role in causing California wildfires. The... View Details

Keywords: Chapter 11; Utilities; Liabilities; Restructuring; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Debt Securities; Legal Liability; Climate Change; Utilities Industry; United States

February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Jaypee Infratech and the Indian Bankruptcy Code

By: Kristin Mugford, William Vrattos and Radhika Kak

In 2016, India passed a new bankruptcy law (IBC) to counter a brewing bank crisis and increased corporate distress. Homebuilder Jaypee Infratech, one of India largest distressed companies (the “dirty dozen”) began restructuring under the IBC in 2017. Two years later,... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Trade Policy in the Shadow of Conflict: The Case of Dual-use Goods

By: Maxim Alekseev and Xinyue Lin

Policymakers increasingly use trade instruments to address national security concerns. This paper studies optimal policy for dual-use goods, items with both military and civilian applications. We begin by documenting that regulation and trade flows of dual-use goods... View Details

Keywords: Policy; National Security; Trade; Taxation; Financial Instruments; Macroeconomics

2015
Book

Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World

By: Jeremy Friedman

The conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War has long been understood in a global context, but Jeremy Friedman's Shadow Cold War delves deeper into the era to examine the competition between the Soviet Union and the People's... View Details

Keywords: Competition; War; International Relations; China; United States; Soviet Union

Article

Shadow of the Contract: How Contract Structure Shapes Inter-Firm Dispute Resolution

By: Fabrice Lumineau and Deepak Malhotra

This paper investigates how contract structure influences inter-firm dispute resolution processes and outcomes by examining a unique dataset consisting of over 150,000 pages of documents relating to 102 business disputes. We find that the level of contractual detail... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Contracts; Rights; Negotiation; Conflict and Resolution; Power and Influence

June 2015
Case

Beacon Group of Hong Kong: Finding Light in the Shadow Education Industry

By: Christopher Marquis, Qi Li and Guy Leung

After more than 25 years of operation, Beacon Group had grown from having 3 small classrooms on the fourth floor of a commercial building, to a network of 21 centers across Hong Kong with over 60,000 students enrolled per year. The key long-term challenge for the... View Details

Keywords: Online Education; Education; Tutoring; Incentives; Hong Kong; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web; Family Business; Education Industry; Hong Kong

November 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Restructuring JAL

By: Malcolm Baker, Adi Sunderam, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

Hideo Seto, the recently appointed chairman of the investment committee of the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation, must decide whether to push JAL group, Japan's largest airline, into bankruptcy or to act as a sponsor in an out-of-court restructuring. The... View Details

Keywords: Bankruptcy; Costs Of Financial Distress; Cost vs Benefits; Air Transportation; Restructuring; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Air Transportation Industry; Japan; United States