IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijfss/v13y2025i1p22-d1583762.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial Literacy and Credit Card Payoff Behaviors: Using Generalized Ordered Logit and Partial Proportional Odds Models to Measure American Credit Card Holders’ Likelihood of Repaying Their Credit Cards

Author

Listed:
  • Christos I. Giannikos

    (Bert Wasserman Department of Economics & Finance, Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, The City University of New York, New York, NY 10010, USA)

  • Efstathia D. Korkou

    (Department of Business and Economics, School of Business and Information Systems, York College, The City University of New York, 94-20 Guy R. Brewer Blvd, Jamaica, NY 11451, USA)

Abstract

According to the Federal Reserve of the United States, in the second quarter of 2024, American credit card debt reached USD 1.14 trillion, the highest balance ever recorded. In an age of high-interest, complex credit cards, how does financial literacy affect credit card debt repayment? Also, how could financial literacy and education stop the rise in credit card debt in America? To answer these questions, we use microdata from the latest wave of the Survey of Consumer Finances for 2022. We aim to capture the likelihood of credit card repayment behaviors related to the monthly balances owed by 3865 credit card holders. We consider three categories of self-reported credit card payoff behavior: hardly ever, sometimes, and always or almost always. Given the ordinal nature of our outcome variable, we perform a series of likelihood-ratio and Brant tests to assess the assumption of the proportionality of odds across response categories. Following the failure of the tests, we conclude with the selection of a generalized ordered logit/partial proportional odds model that allows us to relax the parallel lines constraint for those variables for which it is not justified. In our logistic regressions, we account for a comprehensive set of demographic characteristics, and from our results, we highlight the following: For credit card holders with low financial literacy, we find that the odds of moving to a higher category of payoff behavior are 21% and significantly lower than those of high financial literacy respondents. Further, for college-educated card holders, the odds of paying off always or almost always versus sometimes and hardly ever are 2.49 times and significantly greater than the odds for credit card holders without a college education. Credit card holders who are minority group members, female, under 45, have dependents, or earn less than USD 50,000 demonstrate a tendency for poor credit card payoff behavior. In our conclusion, we discuss how to improve credit card repayments. We stress the importance of monitoring people closely. We also aim to provide better financial advice to certain groups. Lastly, we present a more realistic approach to building and sustaining financial literacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Christos I. Giannikos & Efstathia D. Korkou, 2025. "Financial Literacy and Credit Card Payoff Behaviors: Using Generalized Ordered Logit and Partial Proportional Odds Models to Measure American Credit Card Holders’ Likelihood of Repaying Their Credit C," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-17, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:1:p:22-:d:1583762
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/1/22/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/1/22/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lusardi, Annamaria & Tufano, Peter, 2015. "Debt literacy, financial experiences, and overindebtedness," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 332-368, October.
    2. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2005. "Financial Literacy and Planning: Implications for Retirement Wellbeing," CeRP Working Papers 46, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lusardi, Annamaria & Mitchell, Olivia S., 2011. "Financial literacy around the world: an overview," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 497-508, October.
    2. Marco Nieddu & Lorenzo Pandolfi, 2018. "Cutting Through the Fog: Financial Literacy and the Subjective Value of Financial Assets," CSEF Working Papers 497, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    3. Vitor Leone & Piers Thompson, 2024. "Financial literacy and advice perceptions among UK higher education students: an ethnicity tale?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 709-781, June.
    4. Maya KATENOVA & Sang HOON LEE, 2020. "A comparative study of financial literacy, retirement planning and delinquency in payment: the Kazakhstan case Abstract: Financial knowledge is assumed to help people in making good choices in their f," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 11, pages 273-292, June.
    5. Sholevar, Maryam & Harris, Laurence, 2019. "Mind the gap: A discussion paper on Financial Literacy, Financial behaviour and Financial Education : Is there any Gender Gap?," OSF Preprints b7zd6, Center for Open Science.
    6. Sundar, B. & Virmani, Vineet, 2013. "Numeracy and Financial Literacy of Forest Dependent Communities Evidence from Andhra Pradesh," IIMA Working Papers WP2013-09-02, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    7. Aurélien Saussay, 2019. "Dynamic heterogeneity: rational habits and the heterogeneity of household responses to gasoline prices," Post-Print hal-03632598, HAL.
    8. Yiing Jia Loke, 2015. "Financial Knowledge and Behaviour of Working Adults in Malaysia," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 9(1), pages 18-38, February.
    9. Bannier, Christina E. & Schwarz, Milena, 2018. "Gender- and education-related effects of financial literacy and confidence on financial wealth," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 66-86.
    10. Bose, Udichibarna & MacDonald, Ronald & Tsoukas, Serafeim, 2015. "Education and the local equity bias around the world," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 65-88.
    11. Calcagno, Riccardo & Monticone, Chiara, 2015. "Financial literacy and the demand for financial advice," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 363-380.
    12. Sconti, Alessia & Caserta, Maurizio & Ferrante, Livio, 2024. "Gen Z and financial education: Evidence from a randomized control trial in the South of Italy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    13. Feng, Xiangnan & Lu, Bin & Song, Xinyuan & Ma, Shuang, 2019. "Financial literacy and household finances: A Bayesian two-part latent variable modeling approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 119-137.
    14. Anoosheh Rostamkalaei & Allan Riding, 2020. "Immigrants, Financial Knowledge, and Financial Behavior," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 951-977, September.
    15. Marco Angrisani & Sergio Barrera & Luisa R. Blanco & Salvador Contreras, 2021. "The racial/ethnic gap in financial literacy in the population and by income," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 524-536, July.
    16. François Desmoulins-Lebeault & Luc Meunier, 2018. "Moment Risks: Investment for Self and for a Firm," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 242-266, December.
    17. Antonia Grohmann & Annekathrin Schoofs, 2018. "Financial Literacy and Intra-Household Decision Making: Evidence from Rwanda," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1720, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Chalmers, John & Johnson, Woodrow T. & Reuter, Jonathan, 2014. "The effect of pension design on employer costs and employee retirement choices: Evidence from Oregon," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 17-34.
    19. Davoli, Maddalena & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2020. "Culture and adult financial literacy: Evidence from the United States," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    20. Noviarini, Jelita & Coleman, Andrew & Roberts, Helen & Whiting, Rosalind H., 2021. "Financial literacy, debt, risk tolerance and retirement preparedness: Evidence from New Zealand," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:1:p:22-:d:1583762. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.