Personal Insolvency and Data Collection Systems

IMF Working Papers, June 20, 2025

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Countries around the world are introducing or improving their personal insolvency regimes, but frequently the effects of these reforms are not evaluated, and the reforms themselves are not supported by adequate data analysis.
This paper proposes the establishment and implementation of data collection systems for personal insolvency.
The paper examines the characteristics of such systems to:
- assess the performance of personal insolvency regimes, and
- extract information useful not only for the design of personal insolvency, but also for other social policies.
Adequate data collection can contribute to effectively achieving the goals of personal insolvency reform.

Personal insolvency reforms often lack evaluation and adequate data analysis.
Establishing and implementing data collection systems is proposed as a remedy.
Well-designed data collection systems enable assessment of insolvency regime performance and provide information relevant for broader social policy design.

The paper examines characteristics needed in data collection systems to:
- assess performance of personal insolvency regimes;
- extract information useful for the design of personal insolvency policies;
- provide data useful for other social policies.

Subject: Corporate insolvency, Data collection, Data processing, Economic and financial statistics, Financial crises, Financial sector policy and analysis, Moral hazard, Solvency
Keywords: adequate data collection, Bankruptcy, Corporate insolvency, Data collection, data collection system, Data Collection Systems, Data processing, Insolvency, insolvency professional, insolvency reform, insolvency regime, Moral hazard, Personal Finance, Solvency