The economic well-being of a household depends on its access to credit and also its access to a legal system for managing over-indebtedness. Our hypothesis is that the removal of regulatory constraints on a bank’s ability to expand in new geographic markets increases households’ access to credit, which in turn, contributes to a rise in consumer defaults. In the US, we find a net increase in Chapter 13 bankruptcies following a loosening of a state’s restrictions on multi-branch banking, compared to the increase in Chapter 13 bankruptcies in states that did not change their banking rules. The increased mortgage lending after branch deregulation helps explain this rise in Chapter 13 filings, suggesting that homeowners use the Chapter 13 code to save their houses. Further, the effects of the mortgage supply channel are greater in areas with low bank concentration. Overall, our findings are relevant to policymakers in their efforts to either set up a new personal insolvency regime or modify the existing bankruptcy process.

中文翻译：

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美国的银行监管限制和个人破产申请

一个家庭的经济福祉取决于其获得信贷的机会，以及能否获得管理过度负债的法律制度。我们的假设是，取消对银行在新地域市场扩张能力的监管限制会增加家庭获得信贷的机会，这反过来又会导致消费者违约率上升。在美国，我们发现在一个州放松对多分支机构银行业务的限制后，第 13 章破产的数量净增加，而未改变其银行规则的州的第 13 章破产数量则有所增加。分支机构放松管制后抵押贷款增加有助于解释第 13 章申请的增加，这表明房主使用第 13 章代码来保存他们的房屋。进一步，在银行集中度较低的地区，房贷供给渠道的作用更大。总体而言，我们的研究结果与政策制定者建立新的个人破产制度或修改现有破产程序的努力相关。