Time Series Analysis of State-Level Personal Bankruptcy Rates, 1970-1996. Bank Trends

摘要

This paper provides statistical analysis of personal bankruptcy filing rate across the 50 states since 1970. Results indicate that the forces pushing bankruptcy rates upward over the past 25 years have operated in a relatively uniform manner across the nation. The presence of a relatively stable rank ordering among individual state filing rates over time indicates the influence across states of institutional or demographic differences, or both, that also strongly affect bankruptcy filing rates. This paper recommends three areas for future research.