The Effects of Over-Indebtedness on Individual Health

Maite Blázquez Cuesta and Santiago Budria Rodriguez ()

No 8912, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper uses data from the 2002-2005-2008 waves of the Spanish Survey of Household Finances (EFF) to investigate whether debts burdens hamper people's health. Several measures of debt strain are constructed, including debt-to-income ratios, the existence of debt arrears and amounts of outstanding debts. The paper also differentiates between mortgage and non-mortgage debts and explores the role of social norm effects in the debt-health relationship. The results, based on a random effects model extended to include a Mundlak term, show that non-mortgage debt payments and debt arrears affect significantly people's health. Furthermore, mild social norm effects are detected, according to which being less indebted than the reference group results, ceteris paribus, in better health.

Keywords: over-indebtedness; self-assessed health; random effects model; social norm effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G01 I13 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2015-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hea
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Published - published in: Hacienda Pública Española, 2018, 227, 103-131.

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Effects of Over-indebtedness on Individual Health (2018)
Working Paper: The effects of over-indebtedness on individual health (2015)
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