Abstract: Using bankruptcy filing information for parents matched to administrative data on their children and leniency of the randomly assigned judges as an instrument, we document the effect of parental bankruptcy protection on children's income and intergenerational mobility. We find that children whose parents receive Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection earn $1,755 (or 5.6%) higher annual income relative to those whose parents file for but do not receive protection. Our results are increasing in the duration lapsed from filing and over the life cycle of children. Parental bankruptcy protection leads to higher income by 2.8% at age 20, 8.8% at age 25 and 35.4% at age 40. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that for one dollar of debt relief granted to parents through Chapter 13 protection their children earn two dollars more in adjusted present value of lifetime earnings. Children of parents who receive protection are more likely to be in the top tercile of income distribution, which is driven by an increase in intergenerational upward mobility for children whose parents receive protection rather than an increase in downward mobility for those whose parents were denied protection. These results highlight the potential role of bankruptcy protection and debt relief more broadly in helping improve intergenerational mobility for low-income distressed households. Finally, our results are most consistent with higher investment in education and skill-development as the mechanism contributing to these findings. We do not find support for neighborhood effects driving our estimates.

Abstract: We document a political partisanship-based assessment gap that imposes a disproportionate fiscal burden on political minorities. In Democratic counties, Republicans face higher property tax burdens than Democrats within the same tax jurisdiction, despite being subject to identical tax administration and rates. This partisan assessment gap is economically significant, amounting to 25-50% of the racial assessment gap. The effects are primarily driven by inter-neighborhood differences rather than within-neighborhood variations and stem from disparities in assessment values rather than market values. Political polarization, differences in tax regimes and wealth, and inconsistencies in tax assessments do not explain these findings. Instead, the composition of elected county officials contributes to our results. The higher tax burden for Republicans in Democratic counties is most pronounced in areas with predominantly Democratic county commissions and decreases as Republican representation in local government increases.

Abstract: CEOs trade off utility from greater advising benefits against disutility from more intensive monitoring in choosing whether to provide their private information to independent directors. We hypothesize that information is shared when we observe CEOs and independent directors opportunistically selling their firms’ shares in the same period. Consistent with economic intuition, we find that information sharing is more likely in complex firms where advising benefits are potentially greater and in firms with more powerful CEOs where the impact of more informed monitoring is dampened. We show that informing directors in a given period improves the following period’s innovation, M&A, and investment outcomes. Reflecting the endogenous nature of CEOs’ information-sharing choices, monitoring outcomes do not improve. Indeed, we find that our measure of information sharing is a new form of connectedness that explains adverse monitoring outcomes incrementally to director co-option and social ties. Our measure enables a redefinition of board independence that is of interest to regulators, researchers, and proxy advisors.