Objective and Subjective Consumer Financial Well-Being

50 Pages Posted: 29 Aug 2020 Last revised: 3 Jul 2023

See all articles by Carsten Erner

Carsten Erner

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Anderson School of Management

Craig R. Fox

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Anderson School of Management

John Chalekian

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Gabriel De La Rosa

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Christopher Trepel

Fenway Summer Ventures

Date Written: February 1, 2016

Abstract

In recent years, consumer financial decision making has moved into the academic research and policy making spotlights, motivated not only by increased concern with the financial protection of vulnerable individuals but also due to the ascendance of well-being as an important policy making objective. The existing literature only provides a fragmented characterization due to heterogeneous samples and study designs. In this paper, we systematically distinguish two dimensions: (1) objective financial well-being, as measured by the credit score and (2) subjective financial well-being, as measured through a rating scale. We report results from a comprehensive study of individual differences related to financial well-being using a general U.S. sample of 500 participants. We identify distinct subsets of individual differences that are related to objective financial well-being and indirectly to subjective financial well-being (e.g., spendthriftiness, sensation seeking, patience), and to subjective financial well-being only (e.g., emotional stability). Data from a follow-up wave provide additional insights into transition behaviors through time; a few individual differences are related to change in credit score for prime and subprime credit status groups (e.g., time discounting, emotional stability).

Keywords: credit score, credit card, subprime, financial distress, consumer finance

JEL Classification: D14, D91

Suggested Citation

Erner, Carsten and Fox, Craig R. and Chalekian, John and De La Rosa, Gabriel and Trepel, Christopher, Objective and Subjective Consumer Financial Well-Being (February 1, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3643575 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3643575

Carsten Erner (Contact Author)

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Anderson School of Management ( email )

110 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
United States

Craig R. Fox

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Anderson School of Management ( email )

110 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
United States

John Chalekian

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Gabriel De La Rosa

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Christopher Trepel

Fenway Summer Ventures ( email )

923 15th Street NW
5th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
United States

HOME PAGE: http://fenwaysummer.com/

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