The Impact of Bankruptcy Exemptions for Retirement Assets

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dc.contributor.authorBaker, Matthewen
dc.contributor.committeechairSmith, Hyrum Legranden
dc.contributor.committeememberDavis, George C.en
dc.contributor.committeememberGeyer, L. Leonen
dc.contributor.departmentAgricultural and Applied Economicsen
dc.date.accessioned2013-05-22T08:00:19Zen
dc.date.available2013-05-22T08:00:19Zen
dc.date.issued2013-05-21en
dc.description.abstractWhen filing for personal bankruptcy, an individual can, in almost all cases, claim an exemption for retirement assets.  Using the Survey of Consumer Finances from 2007 and 2010, we test the theory that highly educated or financially sophisticated households allocate more resources to retirement assets under conditions of higher probability of filing for personal bankruptcy.  This hypothesis stems from the concept of asset sheltering, in which an individual will demonstrate a preference for assets that are exempt from a particular risk. To address our hypothesis, we run a Heckman model on the Survey of Consumer Finances data.  Our results provide evidence to match our theory for only highly educated or financially sophisticated individuals, conditional on owning retirement assets.  That is, we observe highly educated and financially sophisticated households allocate more resources to retirement accounts when they are at higher risk for bankruptcy.  Other characteristic groups do not demonstrate a similarly strong relationship between the probability of filing for bankruptcy and the level of retirement assets.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.format.mediumETDen
dc.identifier.othervt_gsexam:893en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/22080en
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectBankruptcy exemptionsen
dc.subjectfinancial planningen
dc.subjectretirement assetsen
dc.subjectfinancial sophisticationen
dc.subjectHeckman modelen
dc.titleThe Impact of Bankruptcy Exemptions for Retirement Assetsen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineAgricultural and Applied Economicsen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

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