Sticking to your plan: The role of present bias for credit card paydown

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kuchler, Theresa; Pagel, Michaela
• 署名单位: New York University; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2020.08.002
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 359-388
• 关键词: Credit card paydown; present bias; hyperbolic discounting; Sophistication; naivete

摘要

We use data from an online financial service to show that many consumers fail to stick to their self-set debt paydown plans. This behavior is best explained by present bias. Our empirical approach is informed by a parsimonious model showing that the sensitivity of spending to paycheck receipt reflects a present-biased agents short-run impatience, and that this sensitivity is reduced by available resources only for agents who are aware (sophisticated) of their future impatience. Classifying users accordingly, we find that (i) sophisticated users debt paydown decreases with short-run impatience, and that (ii) planned paydown is most predictive of actual paydown for sophisticated users. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.