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Bankruptcy Law and The Cost of Credit: The Impact of Cramdown on Mortgage Interest Rates. Joshua Goodman, August 1, 2012, Paper. “The role of bankruptcy law in credit markets has received renewed attention in the aftermath of the housing bubble collapse. The fundamental challenge for research on this topic is to separate the impact of legal factors from other features of the credit environment. We do so by exploiting historical variation in federal judicial rulings regarding whether Chapter 13 bankruptcy filers could reduce the principal owed on a home loan to the home’s market value. The practice, known as cramdown, was…” Link