IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v32y2011i4p609-620.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding and knowledge of credit cost and duration: Effects on credit judgements and decisions

Author

Listed:
  • McHugh, Sandie
  • Ranyard, Rob
  • Lewis, Alan

Abstract

Financial capability requires understanding measures of consumer credit cost and using them appropriately in credit judgements and decisions. In three studies, UK adults' understanding and use of credit cost and duration information were investigated from a bounded rationality perspective. Study 1, part of a representative survey of UK adults (NÂ =Â 1000), found that when presented with annual percentage rate (APR) participants significantly overestimated the total cost (TC) of a 12-month loan. In Study 2, loan duration and APR were varied in an independent groups experiment (NÂ =Â 242). Bank customers' TC estimates were sensitive to both loan duration and APR but TC was again substantially overestimated. Study 3 was an independent groups experiment investigating the effect of APR and TC information on credit decisions (NÂ =Â 241). APR often influenced decisions between loans varying in duration and monthly repayment, but this effect was moderated by TC information. It was concluded that: (1) people generally misunderstand the relation between APR and TC; and (2) although APR information can have a large effect on credit decisions, its effect is either attenuated or amplified by TC information. The findings are interpreted in terms of a 'take the best APR' heuristic and a dual mental account model of instalment credit. Recommendations for improving credit information provision and financial education are offered.

Suggested Citation

  • McHugh, Sandie & Ranyard, Rob & Lewis, Alan, 2011. "Understanding and knowledge of credit cost and duration: Effects on credit judgements and decisions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 609-620, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:32:y:2011:i:4:p:609-620
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487011000201
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ranyard, Rob & Craig, Gill, 1993. "Estimating the duration of a flexible loan: The effect of supplementary information," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 317-335, June.
    2. Ranyard, Rob & Hinkley, Lisa & Williamson, Janis & McHugh, Sandie, 2006. "The role of mental accounting in consumer credit decision processes," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 571-588, August.
    3. Marianne Bertrand & Dean Karlan & Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir & Jonathan Zinman, 2010. "What's Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 263-306.
    4. Bertrand, Marianne & Karlan, Dean S. & Mullainathan, Sendhil & Shafir, Eldar & Zinman, Jonathan, 2005. "What's Psychology Worth? A Field Experiment in the Consumer Credit Market," Center Discussion Papers 28441, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    5. ,, 2004. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 427-429, April.
    6. ,, 2004. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 223-229, February.
    7. Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 15-25, 01-02.
    8. Bettman, James R & Luce, Mary Frances & Payne, John W, 1998. "Constructive Consumer Choice Processes," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 25(3), pages 187-217, December.
    9. Ranyard, Rob & Craig, Gill, 1995. "Evaluating and budgeting with instalment credit: An interview study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 449-467, September.
    10. Shefrin, Hersh M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "The Behavioral Life-Cycle Hypothesis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 609-643, October.
    11. Adele Atkinson & Stephen McKay & Sharon Collard & Elaine Kempson, 2007. "Levels of Financial Capability in the UK," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 29-36, February.
    12. Svenson, Ola, 1996. "Decision Making and the Search for Fundamental Psychological Regularities: What Can Be Learned from a Process Perspective?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 252-267, March.
    13. Drazen Prelec & George Loewenstein, 1998. "The Red and the Black: Mental Accounting of Savings and Debt," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 4-28.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ranyard, Rob & McHugh, Sandie, 2012. "Defusing the risk of borrowing: The psychology of payment protection insurance decisions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 738-748.
    2. Terence J. McElvaney & Peter D. Lunn & Féidhlim P. McGowan, 2018. "Do Consumers Understand PCP Car Finance? An Experimental Investigation," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 229-255, September.
    3. Lunn, Pete & McGowan, Féidhlim & Howard, Noel, 2018. "Do some financial product features negatively affect consumer decisions? a review of evidence," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS78.
    4. McHugh, Sandie & Ranyard, Rob, 2016. "Consumers’ credit card repayment decisions: The role of higher anchors and future repayment concern," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 102-114.
    5. Gathergood, John, 2012. "Self-control, financial literacy and consumer over-indebtedness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 590-602.
    6. Lin, Chaonan & Hsiao, Yu-Jen & Yeh, Cheng-Yung, 2017. "Financial literacy, financial advisors, and information sources on demand for life insurance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 218-237.
    7. Shen, Chung-Hua & Lin, Shih-Jie & Tang, De-Piao & Hsiao, Yu-Jen, 2016. "The relationship between financial disputes and financial literacy," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 46-65.
    8. Lunn, Pete & Bohacek, Marek & Rybicki, Alicia, 2016. "An Experimental Investigation of Personal Loan Choices," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT314.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ranyard, Rob & Hinkley, Lisa & Williamson, Janis & McHugh, Sandie, 2006. "The role of mental accounting in consumer credit decision processes," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 571-588, August.
    2. Lunn, Pete & McGowan, Féidhlim & Howard, Noel, 2018. "Do some financial product features negatively affect consumer decisions? a review of evidence," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS78.
    3. Johan Almenberg & Artashes Karapetyan, 2009. "Mental accounting in the housing market," IEW - Working Papers 453, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    4. Terence J. McElvaney & Peter D. Lunn & Féidhlim P. McGowan, 2018. "Do Consumers Understand PCP Car Finance? An Experimental Investigation," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 229-255, September.
    5. Edika G. Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart & John Gathergood & George Loewenstein, 2019. "The Red, the Black, and the Plastic: Paying Down Credit Card Debt for Hotels, Not Sofas," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5392-5410, November.
    6. Bouyon, Sylvain, 2015. "Towards a Balanced Contribution of Household Credit to the Economy," ECRI Papers 10554, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    7. Andreas Oehler & Christina Werner, 2008. "Saving for Retirement—A Case for Financial Education in Germany and UK? An Economic Perspective," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 253-283, September.
    8. Bernadette Kamleitner & Bianca Hornung & Erich Kirchler, 2010. "Over-indebtedness and the interplay of factual and mental money management: An interview study," Working Papers 34, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    9. Ume Habibah & Ibne Hassan & Muhammad Shahid Iqbal & Naintara, 2018. "Household behavior in practicing mental budgeting based on the theory of planned behavior," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 1-14, December.
    10. Olsen, Jerome & Kasper, Matthias & Kogler, Christoph & Muehlbacher, Stephan & Kirchler, Erich, 2019. "Mental accounting of income tax and value added tax among self-employed business owners," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 125-139.
    11. Lunn, Pete & Bohacek, Marek & Rybicki, Alicia, 2016. "An Experimental Investigation of Personal Loan Choices," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT314.
    12. Johannes Abeler & Felix Marklein, 2017. "Fungibility, Labels, and Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 99-127.
    13. Priya Jha-Dang, 2006. "A Review of Psychological Research on Consumer Promotions and a New Perspective Based on Mental Accounting," Vision, , vol. 10(3), pages 35-43, July.
    14. Dilip Soman & Amar Cheema, 2002. "The Effect of Credit on Spending Decisions: The Role of the Credit Limit and Credibility," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 32-53, September.
    15. Adena, Maja & Hager, Anselm, 2020. "Does online fundraising increase charitable giving? A nation-wide field experiment on Facebook," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2020-302, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    16. Drew Fudenberg, 2006. "Advancing Beyond Advances in Behavioral Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 694-711, September.
    17. Karlan, Dean S. & Zinman, Jonathan, 2005. "Elasticities of Demand for Consumer Credit," Center Discussion Papers 28485, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    18. Milkman, Katherine L. & Beshears, John, 2009. "Mental accounting and small windfalls: Evidence from an online grocer," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 384-394, August.
    19. Bertrand, Marianne & Shafir, Eldar & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2006. "Behavioral Economics and Marketing in Aid of Decision Making Among the Poor," Scholarly Articles 2962609, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    20. Zinman, Jonathan, 2009. "Debit or credit?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 358-366, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:32:y:2011:i:4:p:609-620. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.