개인도산과 실증조사: 미국의 Consumer Bankruptcy Project에 대한 소개

초록

This paper purports to introduce the Consumer Bankruptcy Project(“CBP”), the representative empirical research of the United States in the field of consumer bankruptcy, and to assert that such an empirical research should be performed in South Korea. In newspaper articles about consumer bankruptcy, the creditor companies have been tenaciously raising issues of the moral hazard or abuse of procedures by debtors. The problem is that there are not enough empirical data, which makes the debate on consumer bankruptcy policy in our country somewhat rather a power game than a discussion. In the United States, CBPs have been carried out four times with mostly 10 years interval and provided empirical data since 1981. 3 law school professors initiated the first CBP. Each CBP is referred to as CBP I, CBP II, CBP III and CBP IV according to the chronological order or as 1981 CBP, 1991 CBP, 2001 CBP and 2007 CBP according to the year when each CBP was performed. The introduction of the background, agendas, methodology and results of each CBP comprises the main body of this paper. The agendas of CBPs were ① Is the consumer bankruptcy being abused by undeserving people?(Who are the debtors in consumer bankruptcy?) ② Can the debtors repay?(Is it right to encourage people to use chapter 13 over chapter 7?), ③ Has the stigma of bankruptcy declined?, ④ Are Americans over-consuming anticipating that they can get discharge easily in bankruptcy? ⑤ Is the Means test accomplishing its purported aim? The results were ① the reason of the increase in consumer bankruptcy filing have been the aggravation of the economy of the United States, ② the debtors who filed for consumer bankruptcy lacks the ability to repay, ③ stigma of filing bankruptcy did not decreased, ④ over-consumption was not a reason of increase in bankruptcy filings, ⑤ The Means-test is not accomplishing the aims that were intented by its proponents. It is necessary to perform an empirical research such as CBP in our country to facilitate upgrade of the system and practice of consumer bankruptcy in South Korea.

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