IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/esprep/180667.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Insights into the Impact of Bankruptcy's Public Record on Entrepreneurial Activity: Evidence from Economic Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Dulleck, Uwe
  • Howell, Nicola J.
  • Koessler, Ann-Kathrin
  • Mason, Rosalind F.

Abstract

Many Anglo-American jurisdictions aim to provide debtors with a 'fresh start' after a personal bankruptcy. However, we query the extent to which debtors can achieve a fresh start if records of individual bankruptcies are publicly available, with no restrictions on their use. To inform the legal policy question of whether bankruptcy records should be publicly available, we study the effect of the availability of bankruptcy records, compared to their non-existence, in an economic experiment. The experiment allows us to identify empirically the effect that the exposure of bankruptcy history has on the behaviour of investors and debtors. Our exploratory research shows that the availability of bankruptcy records increases investment. Availability also increases repayment behaviour by debtors, but only if the debtor has no history of bankruptcy (non-return of payments). If, however, a debtor failed to return payments in the past, and this information is available, debtors show lower instances of return behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Dulleck, Uwe & Howell, Nicola J. & Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Mason, Rosalind F., 2018. "Insights into the Impact of Bankruptcy's Public Record on Entrepreneurial Activity: Evidence from Economic Experiments," EconStor Preprints 180667, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:esprep:180667
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/180667/1/Dulleck_Howell_Koessler_Mason_Bankruptcy%20Public%20Records.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    3. Cox, James C., 2004. "How to identify trust and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 260-281, February.
    4. Huck, Steffen & Lünser, Gabriele K. & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2012. "Competition fosters trust," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 195-209.
    5. Gary E. Bolton & Elena Katok & Axel Ockenfels, 2004. "How Effective Are Electronic Reputation Mechanisms? An Experimental Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(11), pages 1587-1602, November.
    6. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    8. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    9. Claudia Keser, 2002. "Trust and Reputation Building in E-Commerce," CIRANO Working Papers 2002s-75, CIRANO.
    10. Bracht, Juergen & Feltovich, Nick, 2009. "Whatever you say, your reputation precedes you: Observation and cheap talk in the trust game," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1036-1044, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zakaria Babutsidze & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2021. "Nonverbal content and trust: An experiment on digital communication," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(4), pages 1517-1532, October.
    2. Fehr, Dietmar & Sutter, Matthias, 2019. "Gossip and the efficiency of interactions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 448-460.
    3. Katarína Danková & Hodaka Morita & Maroš Servátka & Le Zhang, 2022. "Fairness concerns and job assignment to positions with different surplus," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(4), pages 1490-1516, April.
    4. Servátka, Maroš & Tucker, Steven & Vadovič, Radovan, 2011. "Words speak louder than money," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 700-709.
    5. Roman Hoffmann & Bernhard Kittel & Mattias Larsen, 2021. "Information exchange in laboratory markets: competition, transfer costs, and the emergence of reputation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 118-142, March.
    6. Zakaria Babutsidze & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2020. "Nonverbal content and swift trust: An experiment on digital communication," Working Papers 2008, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    7. Abraham, Martin & Grimm, Veronika & Neeß, Christina & Seebauer, Michael, 2016. "Reputation formation in economic transactions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 1-14.
    8. Gary Bolton & Kevin Breuer & Ben Greiner & Axel Ockenfels, 2023. "Fixing feedback revision rules in online markets," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 247-256, April.
    9. Daniel Woods & Maroš Servátka, 2019. "Nice to you, nicer to me: Does self-serving generosity diminish the reciprocal response?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 506-529, June.
    10. Goeschl, Timo & Jarke, Johannes, 2014. "Trust, but verify? When trustworthiness is observable only through (costly) monitoring," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 20, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    11. Sofianos, Andis, 2022. "Self-reported & revealed trust: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    12. Maroš Servátka & Steven Tucker & Radovan Vadovič, 2011. "Building Trust—One Gift at a Time," Games, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-22, September.
    13. Behnud Mir Djawadi & René Fahr & Claus-Jochen Haake & Sonja Recker, 2018. "Maintaining vs. milking good reputation when customer feedback is inaccurate," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(11), pages 1-23, November.
    14. Schwerter, Frederik & Zimmermann, Florian, 2020. "Determinants of trust: The role of personal experiences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 413-425.
    15. Neo, Wei Siong & Yu, Michael & Weber, Roberto A. & Gonzalez, Cleotilde, 2013. "The effects of time delay in reciprocity games," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 20-35.
    16. Huck, Steffen & Lünser, Gabriele K. & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2012. "Competition fosters trust," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 195-209.
    17. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    18. Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Müller, Julia & Zitzelsberger, Sonja, 2023. "Asymmetric heterogeneities and the role of transfers in a public goods experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    19. Jeffrey Hales & Michael G. Williamson, 2010. "Implicit Employment Contracts: The Limits of Management Reputation for Promoting Firm Productivity," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 51-80, March.
    20. Bharat Chandar & Uri Gneezy & John A. List & Ian Muir, 2019. "The Drivers of Social Preferences: Evidence from a Nationwide Tipping Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 26380, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    bankruptcy; investments; National Personal Insolvency Index; uncertainty; economic experiment; insolvency; public records;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K35 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Personal Bankruptcy Law
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • K20 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:esprep:180667. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    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.