10 UNSW Law Journal Volume 40(3)
8
MISFORTUNE OR MISDEED: AN EM IRICAL STUDY OF UBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARDS ERSONAL BAN RU TCY
PAUL ALI, LUCINDA O’BRIEN AND IAN RAMSAY
I INTRODUCTION
While the field of bankruptcy scholarship is well established, there has so far been very little scholarly investigation of the social context in which bankruptcy occurs. Scholars, politicians and other commentators tend to discuss this subject under the rubric of bankruptcy stigma’.1 Yet these discussions generally draw upon interviews with debtors,2 or other indirect indicators of public opinion, such as newspaper articles.3 They are seldom based upon surveys or interviews with members of the public. To date, only three empirical studies have investigated public attitudes to bankruptcy in this way.4 These three studies were all carried out by the Insolvency Service ( IS’) in the United Kingdom ( UK’) in the 2000s,