IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jconsa/v53y2019i4p2058-2085.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Local Conditions and Debt in Collections

Author

Listed:
  • Breno Braga
  • Signe‐Mary Mckernan
  • Caroline Ratcliffe
  • Brett Theodos
  • John Chalekian
  • Christopher Trepel

Abstract

Using credit reporting firm records on 7 million individuals in the United States, we first demonstrate that debt in collections varies significantly across the country; specifically, the South and West regions have higher shares of individuals with debt in collections than other regions. Second, we identify local factors that are strongly related to debt in collections. Results from our regression models show that neighborhoods with higher rates of debt in collections are more likely to have (1) lower health insurance coverage; (2) lower home values and homeownership rates, (3) a higher share of delinquent and underwater mortgages, (4) lower household incomes, and (5) a higher share of African Americans and Latinos. While our analysis does not identify the causal mechanisms that determine financial distress, the analyses developed here can facilitate research on such mechanisms.

Suggested Citation

  • Breno Braga & Signe‐Mary Mckernan & Caroline Ratcliffe & Brett Theodos & John Chalekian & Christopher Trepel, 2019. "Local Conditions and Debt in Collections," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 2058-2085, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:53:y:2019:i:4:p:2058-2085
    DOI: 10.1111/joca.12283
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12283
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/joca.12283?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Maxim L. Pinkovskiy & Jacob Wallace, 2020. "The Great Equalizer: Medicare and the Geography of Consumer Financial Strain," Staff Reports 911, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    2. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Maxim Pinkovskiy & Jacob Wallace, 2020. "Medicare and the Geography of Financial Health," Working Papers 2020-004, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    3. Zhong, Mingli & Braga, Breno & McKernan, Signe-Mary & Hayward, Mark & Millward, Elizabeth & Trepel, Christopher, 2024. "Impacts of COVID-19-era economic policies on consumer debt in the United Kingdom," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:53:y:2019:i:4:p:2058-2085. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-0078 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.