Guiltily indebted? How a word is linked to individual borrowing

Tamara Bogatzki, David Stadelmann and Benno Torgler

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 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.

Keywords: Economics of language; borrowing; behaviour; debt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 D83 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Journal Article: Guiltily indebted? How a word is linked to individual borrowing (2025)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:341506

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