SummaryIn Gathergood et al. (forthcoming), we studied credit card repayments using linked data on multiple cards from the United Kingdom. We showed that individuals did not allocate payments to the higher interest rate card, which would minimize the cost of borrowing, but instead made repayments according to a balance-matching heuristic under which the share of repayments on each card is matched to the share of balances on each card. In this paper, we examine whether these results extend to the United States using a large sample of TransUnion credit bureau data. These data do not have interest rates, so we cannot examine the optimality of payments. However, we observe balances and repayments, so we can examine balance-matching behavior. We replicate our analysis and find that Americans also repay their debt in accordance with a balance-matching heuristicDetails: Economics Bulletin, Vol 39(2) 1458-1466
Authors: John Gathergood (University of Nottingham School of Economics), Neale Mahoney (University of Chicago Booth School of Business), Neil Stewart (Warwick Business School) and Jörg Weber (University of Nottingham School of Economics).
Sir Clive Granger BuildingSchool of Economics The University of NottinghamUniversity ParkNottingham NG7 2RD
telephone: +44 (0)115 84 66067 email: chris.starmer@nottingham.ac.uk
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