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Bankruptcy Filing Figures Through August

posted by Bob Lawless

2007_filings_per_day_2 Again, courtesy of the good folks at Automated Access to Court Electronic Records (AACER), here are some data about 2007 bankruptcy filing statistics through the month of August. According to AACER, there have been 537,712 bankruptcy petitions filed in the United States through August 2007. The total number of filings in August was 76,812 as compared to 69,016 in July. The difference is exaggerated because the foibles of the calendar meant July had two more workdays for the bankruptcy courts to be open than was true in August. On a "per filing day" basis, August had 3,340 filings per day as compared to 3,286 filings per day in July. Moreover, month-to-month variation in bankruptcy filings is more likely to be statistical noise than a meaningful difference.

For me, there are two interesting things we can take away from these data.

First, we're seeing another example of Ronald Mann's point here on Credit Slips that U.S. bankruptcy filings plateau the from April through mid-August. The graph above shows the 2007 filing rate per day for each month in 2007. Bankruptcy filings climbed dramatically from January through March 2007 but have leveled off since then. If past patterns hold, the graph will show a rise again when we begin to get figures for the rest of the year. Note Mann pegged the precise period of the plateau as running through "mid-August," and the filing rate shows a slight uptick in August, a small but intriguing piece of evidence that past patterns might again hold if filing rates increased at the end of August.

Jan_to_aug_2007_filings_2The second point I wanted to make with these data is that we can make a tentative prediction about where total bankruptcy filings for the year might end up. Using the algorithms from my previous post here about the July numbers, we can arrive at the following range of estimates:

  • 794,000 if filings continue through the end of 2007 at the average rate for the first eight months of 2007
  • 808,000 if filings continue through the end of 2007 at the rate for August 2007
  • 864,000 if filings after August 2007 represent the same proportion of the total 2007 figures (about 62%) as the filings in August 2006 represented of the total 2006 figures

All of this is based on past performance which, as we all know from hushed television disclaimers read by fast-speaking actors, is not necessarily an indicator of future performance. Certainly, the huge increase in the number of U.S. foreclosures or the drying up of the credit markets might lead to more bankruptcy filings (see here) than past patterns might predict.

Comments

What I think is really interesting is that I've searched all over, and I don't see anyone tracking the rate of Chapter 13 discharges in 2007. Filings are only one half of the equation. How many people are completing?

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  • As a public service, the University of Illinois College of Law operates Bankr-L, an e-mail list on which bankruptcy professionals can exchange information. Bankr-L is administered by one of the Credit Slips bloggers, Professor Robert M. Lawless of the University of Illinois. Although Bankr-L is a free service, membership is limited only to persons with a professional connection to the bankruptcy field (e.g., lawyer, accountant, academic, judge). To request a subscription on Bankr-L, click here to visit the page for the list and then click on the link for "Subscribe." After completing the information there, please also send an e-mail to Professor Lawless ([email protected]) with a short description of your professional connection to bankruptcy. A link to a URL with a professional bio or other identifying information would be great.

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