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Girls will be girls? The gendered effect of financial overconfidence on credit card delinquency

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  • Chhatwani, Malvika

Abstract

We investigate the impact of financial overconfidence on credit card behavior among men and women. We operationalize financial overconfidence as a discrepancy between objective and subjective financial literacy. Utilizing a dataset comprising 19,795 individuals, our analysis reveals a significant positive relationship between financial overconfidence and credit card delinquency. Further, we also find that financial overconfidence is significantly weaker among women as compared to men. Our findings are robust to several robustness tests using additional control variables or different operationalizations of independent and dependent variables. These findings offer intriguing practical implications, suggesting a gender-specific intervention to address the effects of financial overconfidence on credit card usage. The theoretical and practical contributions of our research are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Chhatwani, Malvika, 2025. "Girls will be girls? The gendered effect of financial overconfidence on credit card delinquency," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:47:y:2025:i:c:s221463502500067x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101086
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