The next QSIDE colloquium (https://qsideinstitute.org/events/qside–colloquium/) is Thursday March 10, at 2pm Mountain (=4pm Eastern). The virtual talk will consist of around 40 minutes of presentation by the speaker and 20 minutes of Q+A from both panel and general participants. After the talk, there will be a 30 minute tea time conversation you are welcome to stay for!

Speaker: Sasha Indarte

Title: Explaining Racial Disparities in Personal Bankruptcy Outcomes

Abstract: We document a persistent Black-white gap in personal bankruptcy outcomes. Using preliminary bankruptcy outcomes data from three states while we process new national data, we replicate earlier findings that Black filers are more likely to have their bankruptcy cases dismissed without any debt relief. We further show that these disparities hold even conditional on a wide array of individual characteristics observable on bankruptcy filings. After assembling a dataset covering personal bankruptcy filings along with imputed filer, judge, trustee, and attorney race, we uncover strong evidence for racial bias driven by homophily: Black filer court outcomes are less favorable when randomly assigned to a white bankruptcy trustee. There is also moderately strong evidence for the importance of bankruptcy trustees—court employees randomly assigned to oversee each bankruptcy case.

Zoom link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86221037408?pwd=OWNSeUVEQ0hMQ1ppN0psNVpGYk51dz09