In this dissertation, I study three policy-relevant questions using empirical methods from applied microeconomics. In Chapter 1, I study the effect of government fine and debt collection policy on individual financial well-being. I do so in the context of Chicago, where beginning in 2011 the city adopted a more aggressive traffic fine and debt collection policy. Using detailed traffic fine, credit report, and consumer bankruptcy records, I find that the policy change did not have a large effect on financial well-being as measured by credit scores, credit card balances past due, or debt in collections. The policy change did, however, cause a 1.1 standard deviation increase in the Chapter 13 bankruptcy rate. The bankruptcy response was driven by an influx of filings by relatively low-income, low-asset individuals with significant traffic fine debt. For most Chapter 13 bankruptcy filers with traffic fine debt, bankruptcy provided no debt relief and limited asset protection at significant cost in bankruptcy court and attorney fees. In Chapter 2, I study the effect of threats of driver's license suspension (DLS) on the payment of government fines. Using detailed traffic fine records from the City of Chicago, I find that receiving a threat of DLS increases traffic fine payment by \$658 on average over the four years following receipt. My estimates suggest that eliminating DLS for the non-payment of traffic fines would reduce annual traffic fine revenue in the city by 4.5 percent. In Chapter 3, I work with Justine Hastings and Jesse Shapiro to study the effect of participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on the composition and nutrient content of foods purchased for at-home consumption. Using detailed data from a large retail panel, we find that the effect of SNAP participation is small relative to the cross-sectional variation in most of the outcomes we consider. Estimates from a model relating the composition of a household's food purchases to the household's current level of food spending suggest that closing the gap in food spending between high- and low-SES households would not close the gap in summary measures of food healthfulness.
Kessler, Ryan,
"Essays in Applied Microeconomics"
(2020).
Economics Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/b7ch-qm29
