Credit Card Indebtedness and Psychological Well-Being Over Time: Empirical Evidence from a Household Survey

Shuying Shen, Abdoul G. Sam and Eugene Jones

Journal of Consumer Affairs, 2014, vol. 48, issue 3, 431-456

Abstract: type="main" xml:id="joca12047-abs-0001"> While a number of studies have investigated the relationship between debt and psychological well-being, none so far has explored if and how this relationship evolves over time. We seek to fill this gap in the literature by empirically analyzing the impact of household credit card debt on debt stress. Using cross-sectional data collected by The Ohio State University's Consumer Finance Monthly survey between August 2008 and December 2010, we construct a debt stress index and categorize households into three groups based on the length of credit card indebtedness. Our empirical results provide statistical evidence of time-varying impacts of credit card debt on stress levels. Specifically, we find that debt stress for short-run debtors is more than twice that of long-run debtors. The results are robust across a range of econometric specifications.

Date: 2014
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