Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T08:11:34.190Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Crisis and Bankruptcy: The Mediating Role of State Law, 1920–1932

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2012

MARY ESCHELBACH HANSEN  and
BRADLEY A. HANSEN
MARY ESCHELBACH HANSEN*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, 127 Kreeger Hall, Washington, DC 20016-8029. E-mail: [email protected].
BRADLEY A. HANSEN*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5300. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The onset of the Great Depression did not spark a surge in personal bankruptcy. For debtors in default, state garnishment law played a significant role in the decision to file for bankruptcy. Only states that made it easy to garnish a debtor's wages experienced significant increases in bankruptcy as a consequence of the Depression.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , 30 May 2012 , pp. 448 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Balleisen, Edward. Navigating Failure: Bankruptcy and Commercial Society in Antebellum America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Bernanke, Ben S. “Bankruptcy, Liquidity, and Recession.” American Economic Review 71, no. 2 (1981): 155–59.Google Scholar
Breusch, Trevor, Ward, Michael, Nguyen, Hoa, et al. “On the Fixed Effects Vector Decomposition.” Political Analysis 19, no. 2 (2011): 132–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckley, Frank, and Brinig, Margaret. “The Bankruptcy Puzzle.” Journal of Legal Studies 27, no. 1 (1998): 187–208.Google Scholar
Dehejia, Rajeev, DeLeire, Thomas, and Luttmer, Erzo F.P.. “Insuring Consumption and Happiness Through Religious Organizations.” Journal of Public Economics 91, no. 2 (2007): 259–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Domowitz, Ian, and Eovaldi, Thomas L.. “The Impact of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 on Consumer Bankruptcy.” Journal of Law and Economics 36, no. 2 (1993): 803–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, William O. “Wage Earner Bankruptcies—State vs. Federal Control.” Yale Law Journal 42, no. 3 (1993): 591–642.Google Scholar
Fay, Scott, Hurst, Erik, and White, Michelle J.. “The Household Bankruptcy Decision.” American Economic Review 92, no. 3 (2002): 706–18.Google Scholar
Field, Alexander J. “Bankruptcy, Debt, and the Macroeconomy: 1919-1946.” Research in Economic History 20 (2001): 99–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flood, Mark D.United States Historical Data on Bank Market Structure, 1896-1955 [Computer file]. ICPSR version. Montreal, Quebec: Mark D. Flood, Concordia University [producer], 1998. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor].Google Scholar
Fortas, Abe. “Wage Assignments in Chicago. State Street Furniture Co. v. Armour & Co.” The Yale Law Journal 42, no. 4 (1933): 526–60.Google Scholar
Goodman, Paul. “The Emergence of Homestead Exemption in the United States: Accommodation and Resistance to the Market Revolution, 1840-1880.” The Journal of American History 80, no. 2 (1993): 470–98.Google Scholar
Greene, William. “Fixed-Effects Vector Decomposition: A Magical Solution to the Problem of Time-Invariant Variables in Fixed Effects Models?” Political Analysis 19, no. 2 (2011): 135–46.Google Scholar
Guinnane, Timothy, Carruthers, Bruce G., and Lee, Yoonseok. “Bringing ‘Honest Capital' to Poor Borrowers: The Passage of the Uniform Small Loan Law, 1906-1930.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 42, no. 3 (2011): 393–418.Google Scholar
Hansen, Bradley A. “Creating a National Economy: Commercial Associations and the Demand for a Federal Bankruptcy Law.” Business History Review 72, no. 1 (1998): 86–113.Google Scholar
Hansen, Bradley A., and Eschelbach Hansen, Mary. “The Role of Path Dependence in the Development of U.S. Bankruptcy Law, 1880-1938.” Journal of Institutional Economics 3, no. 2 (2007): 203–25.Google Scholar
Hansen, Bradley A., and Eschelbach Hansen, Mary. “Religion, Social Capital, and Business Bankruptcy, 1921-1932.” Business History 50, no. 6 (2008): 714–27.Google Scholar
Hausman, Jerry A., and Taylor, William E.. “Panel Data and Unobservable Individual Effects.” Econometrica 49, no. 6 (1981): 1377–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holthausen, Duncan M., Merriam, Malcolm L., and Nugent, Rolf. The Volume of Consumer Installment [sic] Credit, 1929-1938. Cambridge, MA: NBER, 1940.Google Scholar
Hynes, Richard M., Milani, Anup, and Posner, Eric. “The Political Economy of Property Exemption Laws.” Journal of Law and Economics 47, no. 1 (2004): 19–43.Google Scholar
Keller, Morton. Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900-1933. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Lefgren, Lars, and McIntyre, David. “Explaining the Puzzle of Cross-State Differences in Bankruptcy Rates.” Journal of Law and Economics 52, no. 2 (2009): 367–93.Google Scholar
National Association of Credit Men. Credit Manual of Commercial Laws. New York: National Association of Credit Men, 1930.Google Scholar
National Association of Credit Men. Credit Manual of Commercial Laws. New York: National Association of Credit Men, 1935.Google Scholar
National Association of Credit Men. Credit Manual of Commercial Laws. New York: National Association of Credit Men, 1938.Google Scholar
Nugent, Rolf. “Small Loan Debt in the United States.” The Journal of Business of the University of Chicago 7, no. 1 (1934): 1–21.Google Scholar
Nugent, Rolf, Hamm, John E., and Jones, Frances. “Wage Executions for Debt: Part 2. Characteristics of Debts and Debtors.” Monthly Labor Review 42, no. 3 (1936a): 578–92.Google Scholar
Nugent, Rolf, Hamm, John E., and Jones, Frances. “Wage Executions for Debt. Part 3. Most Frequent Creditors, Costs of Executions, and Employers' Policies.” Monthly Labor Review 43, no. 4 (1936b): 51–61.Google Scholar
Nugent, Rolf, and Jones, Frances. “Wage Executions for Debt: Part 1. Frequency of Wage Executions.” Monthly Labor Review 42, no. 2 (1936): 285–300.Google Scholar
Oaxaca, Ronald L., and Geisler, Iris. “Fixed-Effects Models with Time-Invariant Variables. A Theoretical Note.” Economics Letters 80, no. 3 (2003): 373–77.Google Scholar
Olney, Martha. Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit, and Consumer Durables in the 1920s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Pluemper, Thomas, and Troeger, Vera E.. “Efficient Estimation of Time-Invariant and Rarely Changing Variables in Finite Sample Panel Analyses with Unit Fixed Effects.” Political Analysis 15, no. 1 (2007): 124–39.Google Scholar
Plummer, Wilbur C., and Young, Ralph A.. Sales Finance Companies and Their Credit Practices. Boston, MA: NBER, 1940. Available at http://www.nber.org/books/plum40-1 (accessed 6 February 2012).Google Scholar
Robinson, Louis N., and Nugent, Rolf. Regulation of the Small Loan Business. New York: Russell Sage, 1935.Google Scholar
Ryan, Franklin W.Usury and Usury Laws. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1924.Google Scholar
Sadd, Victor, and Williams, Robert T.. Causes of Bankruptcies Among Consumers. Washington, DC: GPO, 1933.Google Scholar
Skeel, David. Debt's Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skeel, David. “An Evolutionary Theory of Corporate Law and Corporate Bankruptcy.” Vanderbilt Law Review 51, no. 5 (1998): 1325–98.Google Scholar
Stark, Rodney. “The Reliability of Historical United States Census Data on Religion.” Sociological Analysis 53, no. 1 (1992): 91–95.Google Scholar
Sturges, Wesley, and Cooper, Don E.. “Credit Administration and Wage Earner Bankruptcies.” Yale Law Journal 42, no. 2 (1933): 487–525.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Statistical Abstract of the United States. Available at http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/past_years.html (accessed 23 June 2006).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census. Census of Religious Bodies 1926, Part I: Summary and Detailed Tables. Available at http://216.122.145.46/arda.asp?Show=Home (accessed 23 June 2006).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. “Causes of Business Failures and Bankruptcies of Individuals in New Jersey in 1929-30.” Domestic Commerce Series No. 54. Washington, DC: GPO, 1931.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Justice. Annual Report of the Attorney General of the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, various years.Google Scholar
U.S., Senate. Strengthening Procedure in the Judicial System. 72nd Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document No. 65. Washington: GPO, 1932.Google Scholar
University of Virginia Geospatial and Statistical Data Center. “United States Historical Census Data Browser.” Available at http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/ (accessed 10 August 10 2008).Google Scholar
White, Michelle. “Personal Bankruptcy Under the 1978 Bankruptcy Code: An Economic Analysis.” Indiana Law Journal 63, no. 1 (1987): 1–53.Google Scholar
White, Michelle. “Why Don't More Households File for Bankruptcy?” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 14, no. 2 (1998): 208–31.Google Scholar
White, Michelle. “Bankruptcy and Consumer Behavior: Theory and Evidence from the United States.” In The Economics of Consumer Credit, edited by Bertola, Giuseppe, Disney, Richard, and Grant, Charles, 239–74. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Wickens, David L. “Farmer Bankruptcies, 1898-1935.” United States Department of Agriculture Circular No. 414. Washington, DC: GPO, 1936.Google Scholar