IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/24161.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Do Individuals Repay Their Debt? The Balance-Matching Heuristic

Author

Listed:
  • John Gathergood
  • Neale Mahoney
  • Neil Stewart
  • Joerg Weber

Abstract

We study how individuals repay their debt using linked data on multiple credit cards. Repayments are not allocated to the higher interest rate card, which would minimize the cost of borrowing. Moreover, the degree of misallocation is invariant to the economic stakes, which is inconsistent with optimization frictions. Instead, we show that repayments are consistent with a balance-matching heuristic under which the share of repayments on each card is matched to the share of balances on each card. Balance matching captures more than half of the predictable variation in repayments and is highly persistent within individuals over time.

Suggested Citation

  • John Gathergood & Neale Mahoney & Neil Stewart & Joerg Weber, 2017. "How Do Individuals Repay Their Debt? The Balance-Matching Heuristic," NBER Working Papers 24161, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24161
    Note: CF IO LS PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w24161.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell & João F. Cocco, 2003. "Household Risk Management and Optimal Mortgage Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1449-1494.
    2. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers I: Evaluating Bias in Teacher Value-Added Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2593-2632, September.
    3. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    4. Keys, Benjamin J. & Pope, Devin G. & Pope, Jaren C., 2016. "Failure to refinance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 482-499.
    5. Sumit Agarwal & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Neale Mahoney & Johannes Stroebel, 2015. "Regulating Consumer Financial Products: Evidence from Credit Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 111-164.
    6. Alejandro Ponce & Enrique Seira & Guillermo Zamarripa, 2017. "Borrowing on the Wrong Credit Card? Evidence from Mexico," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1335-1361, April.
    7. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    8. Dan Ariely & George Loewenstein & Drazen Prelec, 2003. ""Coherent Arbitrariness": Stable Demand Curves Without Stable Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 73-106.
    9. Richard H. Thaler & Shlomo Benartzi, 2001. "Naive Diversification Strategies in Defined Contribution Saving Plans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 79-98, March.
    10. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    11. Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson, 2004. "Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry: A Case Study of S&P 500 Index Funds," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 403-456.
    12. Rubinstein, Ariel, 2002. "Irrational diversification in multiple decision problems," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1369-1378, September.
    13. Victor Stango & Jonathan Zinman, 2016. "Borrowing High versus Borrowing Higher: Price Dispersion and Shopping Behavior in the U.S. Credit Card Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(4), pages 979-1006.
    14. repec:bla:jecsur:v:14:y:2000:i:1:p:101-18 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Sendhil Mullainathan & Jann Spiess, 2017. "Machine Learning: An Applied Econometric Approach," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 87-106, Spring.
    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. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    2. Giné, Xavier & Mazer, Rafael Keenan, 2022. "Financial (dis-)information: Evidence from a multi-country audit study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    3. Gärtner, Florian & Semmler, Darwin & Bannier, Christina E., 2023. "What could possibly go wrong? Predictable misallocation in simple debt repayment experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 28-43.
    4. Adams, Paul & Hunt, Stefan & Palmer, Christopher & Zaliauskas, Redis, 2021. "Testing the effectiveness of consumer financial disclosure: Experimental evidence from savings accounts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 122-147.
    5. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    6. Alejandro Ponce & Enrique Seira & Guillermo Zamarripa, 2017. "Borrowing on the Wrong Credit Card? Evidence from Mexico," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1335-1361, April.
    7. Olafsson, Arna & Gathergood, John, 2020. "The Co-holding Puzzle: New Evidence from Transaction-Level Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 14799, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Michael Grubb, 2015. "Failing to Choose the Best Price: Theory, Evidence, and Policy," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(3), pages 303-340, November.
    9. Beltratti, Andrea & Benetton, Matteo & Gavazza, Alessandro, 2017. "The role of prepayment penalties in mortgage loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 165-179.
    10. Enrique Seira & Alan Elizondo & Eduardo Laguna-Müggenburg, 2017. "Are Information Disclosures Effective? Evidence from the Credit Card Market," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 277-307, February.
    11. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Lunn, Pete & McGowan, Féidhlim & Howard, Noel, 2018. "Do some financial product features negatively affect consumer decisions? a review of evidence," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS78.
    13. Agarwal, Sumit & Ben-David, Itzhak & Yao, Vincent, 2017. "Systematic mistakes in the mortgage market and lack of financial sophistication," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 42-58.
    14. John Gathergood & David Hirshleifer & David Leake & Hiroaki Sakaguchi & Neil Stewart, 2023. "Naïve Buying Diversification and Narrow Framing by Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1705-1741, June.
    15. Paul Adams & Benedict Guttman‐Kenney & Lucy Hayes & Stefan Hunt & David Laibson & Neil Stewart, 2022. "Do Nudges Reduce Borrowing and Consumer Confusion in the Credit Card Market?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(S1), pages 178-199, June.
    16. Paul D. Adams & Stefan Hunt & Christopher Palmer & Redis Zaliauskas, 2019. "Testing the Effectiveness of Consumer Financial Disclosure: Experimental Evidence from Savings Accounts," NBER Working Papers 25718, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Dominik Naeher, 2022. "Technology Adoption Under Costly Information Processing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(2), pages 699-753, May.
    18. Sumit Agarwal & Richard J. Rosen & Vincent Yao, 2016. "Why Do Borrowers Make Mortgage Refinancing Mistakes?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3494-3509, December.
    19. John Y. Campbell, 2016. "Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 1-30, May.
    20. Ichiro Fukunaga, 2007. "Imperfect Common Knowledge, Staggered Price Setting, and the Effects of Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1711-1739, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:24161. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.