Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors

Just three years ago, Congress enacted controversial amendments to the Bankruptcy Code. The proponents claimed that the changes would drive the can pay debtors (of which there were supposedly many) from the bankruptcy courts with tough new income-based eligibility requirements. And indeed, after the enactment of the amendments, the number of people filing for bankruptcy plunged. In this Article - the initial report of the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project - the authors analyze the first national, random sample of post-amendments bankruptcy filers. Contrary to the advocates\u27 claim that high-income filers would be driven from the system and, by implication, that those remaining would have more modest incomes, the data show no change in the income levels of bankruptcy filers after the amendments. These findings thus cast doubt on the suggestion that those purged from the bankruptcy courts - approximately 800,000 in 2007 alone based on trend extrapolation - were high-income deadbeats; they instead appear to have been ordinary American families in serious financial distress. The data also show that debtors filing for bankruptcy in 2007 have even greater debt loads than their counterparts from 2001, a development that seems to track a national trend of increasing consumer debt. The findings thus align with at least two predictions of some legal scholars. The first is that the bankruptcy reform bill was not aimed at high-income abusers but was instead a general assault on all debtors, regardless of their financial circumstances. The second is that debtors are waiting longer - and incurring more debt - before ultimately seeking bankruptcy relief, consistent with the so-called sweat box theory of credit card lending

Interpreting Data: A Reply to Professor Pardo

Professor Pardo has published a pointed critique to our Report, raising three major complaints. First, he claims that we make two predicating assumptions in our study that are flawed. Second, he contends that we misunderstand the means test and fail to appreciate with sufficient nuance its operative effect. Third, he maintains that our Report suffers from methodological problems. We can address the two impugned assumptions quickly. The first one - that BAPCPA\u27s means test is the sole causal agent driving 800,000 putative filers from the bankruptcy courts - is not one we make. The second - regarding the income profiles of the missing 800,000 bankruptcy filers - is actually somewhat consistent with predictions Professor Pardo himself makes elsewhere in his critique. The thrust of Professor Pardo\u27s commentary, however, is his second point - that we simply don\u27t get the means test - and so we begin our response by addressing this contention. We then discuss our methodology, which we believe is quite robust, before finally elaborating on why we are sanguine in dismissing his complaints with the two assumptions he claims we make

Estimating Ixodes ricinus densities on the landscape scale

Background: The study describes the estimation of the spatial distribution of questing nymphal tick densities by investigating Ixodes ricinus in Southwest Germany as an example. The production of high-resolution maps of questing tick densities is an important key to quantify the risk of tick-borne diseases. Previous I. ricinus maps were based on quantitative as well as semi-quantitative categorisations of the tick density observed at study sites with different vegetation types or indices, all compiled on local scales. Here, a quantitative approach on the landscape scale is introduced. Methods: During 2 years, 2013 and 2014, host-seeking ticks were collected each month at 25 sampling sites by flagging an area of 100 square meters. All tick stages were identified to species level to select nymphal ticks of I. ricinus, which were used to develop and calibrate Poisson regression models. The environmental variables height above sea level, temperature, relative humidity, saturation deficit and land cover classification were used as explanatory variables. Results: The number of flagged nymphal tick densities range from zero (mountain site) to more than 1,000 nymphs/100 m$^{2}$. Calibrating the Poisson regression models with these nymphal densities results in an explained variance of 72 % and a prediction error of 110 nymphs/100 m$^{2}$ in 2013. Generally, nymphal densities (maximum 374 nymphs/100 m$^{2}$), explained variance (46 %) and prediction error (61 nymphs/100 m2) were lower in 2014. The models were used to compile high-resolution maps with 0.5 km$^{2}$ grid size for the study region of the German federal state Baden-Württemberg. The accuracy of the mapped tick densities was investigated by leave-one-out cross-validation resulting in root-mean-square-errors of 227 nymphs/100 m$^{2}$ for 2013 and 104 nymphs/100 m$^{2}$ for 2014. Conclusions: The methodology introduced here may be applied to further tick species or extended to other study regions. Finally, the study is a first step towards the spatial estimation of tick-borne diseases in Central Europe

Understanding economic abuse through an intersectional lens: Financial abuse, control and exploitation of South Asian women’s productive and reproductive labours

Existing literature on financial abuse focuses on men’s control over money, goods, assets and over women’s education/work, thereby implicitly constructing economic activity as paid work. This paper responds to this under-recognition of men’s (and in the context of particular communities, their family’s) abuse of and control over women’s unpaid (domestic) labour within a broader conceptualization of economic abuse. Drawing upon life-history interviews with 41 South Asian women from two separate studies in the UK and India, this paper takes an intersectional perspective to explore how gender, migration status, race/ethnicity and class can help understand women’s experiences as a continuum of economic abuse

Estimating Ixodes ricinus densities on the landscape scale

Background: The study describes the estimation of the spatial distribution of questing nymphal tick densities by investigating Ixodes ricinus in Southwest Germany as an example. The production of high-resolution maps of quest-ing tick densities is an important key to quantify the risk of tick-borne diseases. Previous I. ricinus maps were based on quantitative as well as semi-quantitative categorisations of the tick density observed at study sites with differ-ent vegetation types or indices, all compiled on local scales. Here, a quantitative approach on the landscape scale is introduced. Methods: During 2 years, 2013 and 2014, host-seeking ticks were collected each month at 25 sampling sites by flag-ging an area of 100 square meters. All tick stages were identified to species level to select nymphal ticks of I. ricinus, which were used to develop and calibrate Poisson regression models. The environmental variables height above sea level, temperature, relative humidity, saturation deficit and land cover classification were used as explanatory variables. Results: The number of flagged nymphal tick densities range from zero (mountain site) to more than 1,000 nymphs/100 m2. Calibrating the Poisson regression models with these nymphal densities results in an explained variance of 72 % and a prediction error of 110 nymphs/100 m2 in 2013. Generally, nymphal densities (maximum 37

The optimization of the method for determination of petroleum hydrocarbons in environmental solid samples (soil, sediment, sewage sludge and waste) by Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionisation Detection (GC-FID)

Węglowodory ropopochodne należą do związków niebezpiecznych dla środowiska. W oparciu o istniejące normy PN-EN 14039:2008 oraz PN-EN ISO 16703:2011 opracowano szybką i tanią metodę oznaczania węglowodorów C10-C40 w próbkach gleby, osadów dennych, osadów ściekowych i odpadów techniką chromatografii gazowej z detektorem płomieniowo-jonizacyjnym (GC-FID). W celu wyznaczenia optymalnych czynników wpływających na wydajność ekstrakcji porównano ekstrakcję z wykorzystaniem mechanicznego wytrząsania z ekstrakcją wspomaganą ultradźwiękami. Dodatkowo optymalizacji poddano etap oczyszczania ekstraktu, doboru odpowiedniego rozpuszczalnika do izolacji analitów oraz wyznaczono warunki programu temperaturowego. W rezultacie ustalono optymalne warunki dla głównych etapów metody, które wpływają na wyniki oznaczeń węglowodorów C10-C40 w próbkach stałych. Dokładność metody została zweryfikowana poprzez analizę materiału odniesienia (TPH-Sandy Loam, RTC) oraz materiałów z dodatkiem wzorca (DE RIV-1, Mineraloil Standard RIV-1). Uzyskano odpowiednią selektywność i czułość do oznaczania węglowodorów ropopochodnych w próbkach stałych.Petroleum hydrocarbons are dangerous for the environment. Based on the existing standards PN-EN 14039:2008 and PN-EN ISO 16703:2011, a fast and cheap method has been developed for the determination of C10-C40 hydrocarbons in soil, sediments, sewage sludge and waste samples by gas chromatography with flame ionisation detector (GC-FID). In order to determine the main factors influencing the extraction efficiencies, a mechanical shaking extraction was compared with ultrasonic bath extraction. In addition, the optimization of a clean-up step, the selection of the appropriate solvent for the analytes isolation and the temperature program were applied. As a result, the optimum working conditions of the main stages were selected for the determination of C10-C40 hydrocarbons in solid samples. The accuracy of the method was verified by analysing reference material (TPH-Sandy Loam, RTC) and materials with oil standard (DE RIV-1, Mineraloil Standard RIV-1). The selectivity and sensitivity were suitable for the determination of petroleum hydrocarbons in solid samples