personal debt and psychological health

John Gathergood

from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Problematic personal debts and associated outcomes, such as bankruptcy and foreclosure, lead to significant declines in psychological health. This article summarises the recent literature and discusses the key issues in measurement and causality. Medical studies show that problem debts are associated with depression, self-harm and even suicide. Recent studies using econometric techniques show that some of the association in self-reported data is due to perception bias. Quasi-experimental studies using data from the housing crises show the onset of problem debt causes deterioration in psychological health, including effects upon physical health and health behaviours.

Keywords: anxiety; bankruptcy; consumer credit; debt; depression; finance; foreclosure; health; health behaviours; mental illness; mortgage debt; psychological health; repossession; suicide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 D14 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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