Debt Collection Lab at Princeton University

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

Lina Khan is the GOAT. 💯💯💯 agree

This NEEDS to happen.

Debt Collection Lab We are changing the narrative about debt collection by building a public facing resource for debtors and their advocates.

We have 3 different reports exploring racial disparities in debt lawsuits in both California and Oregon, available here: debtcollectionlab.org/research?iss...

And more coming!

a box with the following text: "Californians living in zip codes where 67% or more of the population identifies as Hispanic have among the lowest number of collection accounts on their credit reports on average and yet are sued in debt collection cases at rates that are more than twice as high as their White counterparts."

The report is descriptive and exploratory, as there is little information connecting debt lawsuits and credit report data. One of the most interesting findings is a disconnect between collection accounts on credit reports and lawsuit rates in a zip code, by race.

A figure representing the three data sources used in the report (debt collection lawsuit records, University of California Consumer Credit panel, and the American Community Survey) that have been combined in two datasets: (1) a “case- level” dataset which has one row per person sued in our study counties and time period and aggregates the credit reporting and demographic information to zip code and (2) a “zip-level dataset” that combines lawsuit, credit reporting, and ACS demographic information at the level of zip code and year.

The report examined a sample of debt collection lawsuits in 4 large California counties and combines three different datasets at both lawsuit- and zip-levels.

California Debt Collection Lawsuits, Geography, Credit, and Race/Ethnicity: An Exploration By combining debt collection lawsuit data with credit report and demographic information, researchers at the Debt Collection Lab are shedding light on the connection between financial distress and deb...

Earlier this summer, @dalie.bsky.social @claireraba.bsky.social and their team published a report comparing debt collection lawsuits in California with credit reporting information from @capolicylab.bsky.social's UC Consumer Credit Panel. You can find it here: debtcollectionlab.org/research/cal...

Would love to be considered to be part of this group! Thanks for putting it together.

Happening in ~40 mins. You can still register to watch our film screening and discussion!
campusgroups.uci.edu/law/rsvp_boo...

Watch the trailer of our award-winning documentary short, Shame on You! about the debt collection industry and then RSVP to a screening and discussion next Thursday at 12pm PT in person at UCI Law or online - campusgroups.uci.edu/law/rsvp_boo...

#consumerlaw #debtcollection #academicsky

Interested in empirical studies of low-income people and debt with big sets of state court record data? Follow me and my co-researchers @debtcollectionlab.bsky.social! Lots of new research reports up this summer.

How State Policies Affect Court Judgments in Debt Collection Lawsuits: a Comparative Study Across Four States When defendants engage with civil courts about debt collection lawsuits across the United States, they encounter courts that are governed by different policy environments. Drawing on quantitative and ...

Our most recent paper is by Fred Wherry and Hannah Hill and "investigate[s] whether a debtor sued in a policy environment with fewer consumer protections is more likely to receive a default judgment...than those sued [where there are more] consumer protections" debtcollectionlab.org/research/how...

They (@claireraba.bsky.social and @dalie.bsky.social) have a law review article exploring California debt lawsuits and the barriers posed by California's $225+ answer fee on access to justice papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Debt Collection Lab We are changing the narrative about debt collection by building a public facing resource for debtors and their advocates.

@claireraba.bsky.social and @dalie.bsky.social have also coauthored several reports on various aspects of California debt collection, including how lawsuits map onto credit access and race/ethnicity. debtcollectionlab.org/research?loc...

Third-party debt collectors and debt buyers dominate Oregon’s civil courts, few Oregonians participate in debt cases against them The Oregon Judicial Branch shared court docket data with January Advisors to analyze the scope of consumer debt lawsuits in the state. The analysis found the civil docket is dominated by specialized, ...

Our partners at January Advisors authored a chartbook on what's going on with debt collection lawsuits in Oregon, finding, for example that "only 4% of Oregonians sued for debt respond to the case against them." More here: debtcollectionlab.org/research/ore...

Debt Collection Lab We are changing the narrative about debt collection by building a public facing resource for debtors and their advocates.

Some highlights: we have 3 different papers on the effect of debt documentation laws on court outcomes, and a fourth on the effect of these laws on access to credit written by a team led by @dalie.bsky.social and @claireraba.bsky.social, co-PIs of the Lab.

debtcollectionlab.org/research?iss...

Debt Collection Lab We are changing the narrative about debt collection by building a public facing resource for debtors and their advocates.

One of our main goals at the Debt Collection Lab is to produce original research papers and briefs studying the impact of debt collection lawsuits on consumers and the courts. We have 9 reports on our site right now, take a look here!
debtcollectionlab.org/research

Household Debt and Credit Report Unique data and insight into the credit conditions and activity of U.S. households

Despite higher rates, mortgage debt continues to increase--and other #debt is rising even faster.
www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomi...

Watch the trailer of our award-winning documentary short, Shame on You! about the debt collection industry and then RSVP to a screening and discussion next Thursday at 12pm PT in person at UCI Law or online - campusgroups.uci.edu/law/rsvp_boo...

I look forward to reading this very soon. Curious what they've found and how it matches what my team has reported for #PSLF borrowers.

You can read my latest three releases (qualitative work) here!

protectborrowers.org/scholars-dis...