Guiltily indebted? How a word is linked to individual borrowing

Tamara Bogatzki, David Stadelmann and Benno Torgler

Applied Economics Letters, 2025, vol. 32, issue 9, 1269-1272

Abstract: Using data from the World Values Survey, we show that individuals who speak a language in which the same word is used for both (financial) debt and (moral) guilt have a statistically significant and economically meaningful lower likelihood of borrowing money. This relationship holds even after controlling for a range of covariates, fixed effects, grammatical future tense reference, and the Germanic language family. Our results suggest that the synonymity of debt and guilt may be a hitherto overlooked aspect in explaining borrowing behaviour.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2024.2302891

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