IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijfss/v13y2025i1p22-d1583762.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial Literacy and Credit Card Payoff Behaviors: Using Generalized Ordered Logit and Partial Proportional Odds Models to Measure American Credit Card Holders’ Likelihood of Repaying Their Credit Cards

Author

Listed:
  • Christos I. Giannikos

    (Bert Wasserman Department of Economics & Finance, Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, The City University of New York, New York, NY 10010, USA)

  • Efstathia D. Korkou

    (Department of Business and Economics, School of Business and Information Systems, York College, The City University of New York, 94-20 Guy R. Brewer Blvd, Jamaica, NY 11451, USA)

Abstract

According to the Federal Reserve of the United States, in the second quarter of 2024, American credit card debt reached USD 1.14 trillion, the highest balance ever recorded. In an age of high-interest, complex credit cards, how does financial literacy affect credit card debt repayment? Also, how could financial literacy and education stop the rise in credit card debt in America? To answer these questions, we use microdata from the latest wave of the Survey of Consumer Finances for 2022. We aim to capture the likelihood of credit card repayment behaviors related to the monthly balances owed by 3865 credit card holders. We consider three categories of self-reported credit card payoff behavior: hardly ever, sometimes, and always or almost always. Given the ordinal nature of our outcome variable, we perform a series of likelihood-ratio and Brant tests to assess the assumption of the proportionality of odds across response categories. Following the failure of the tests, we conclude with the selection of a generalized ordered logit/partial proportional odds model that allows us to relax the parallel lines constraint for those variables for which it is not justified. In our logistic regressions, we account for a comprehensive set of demographic characteristics, and from our results, we highlight the following: For credit card holders with low financial literacy, we find that the odds of moving to a higher category of payoff behavior are 21% and significantly lower than those of high financial literacy respondents. Further, for college-educated card holders, the odds of paying off always or almost always versus sometimes and hardly ever are 2.49 times and significantly greater than the odds for credit card holders without a college education. Credit card holders who are minority group members, female, under 45, have dependents, or earn less than USD 50,000 demonstrate a tendency for poor credit card payoff behavior. In our conclusion, we discuss how to improve credit card repayments. We stress the importance of monitoring people closely. We also aim to provide better financial advice to certain groups. Lastly, we present a more realistic approach to building and sustaining financial literacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Christos I. Giannikos & Efstathia D. Korkou, 2025. "Financial Literacy and Credit Card Payoff Behaviors: Using Generalized Ordered Logit and Partial Proportional Odds Models to Measure American Credit Card Holders’ Likelihood of Repaying Their Credit C," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-17, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:1:p:22-:d:1583762
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/1/22/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/1/22/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2005. "Financial Literacy and Planning: Implications for Retirement Wellbeing," CeRP Working Papers 46, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Kovács Erzsébet & Vaskövi Ágnes, 2020. "Pension Pessimism in the Young Generation: Basics or Instincts to Blame?," Business Systems Research, Sciendo, vol. 11(2), pages 117-131, October.
    2. Anna Ispierto Maté, Irma Martínez García, Gloria Ruiz Suárez., 2021. "Educación financiera y decisiones de ahorro e inversión: un análisis de la Encuesta de Competencias Financieras (ECF)," CNMV Documentos de Trabajo CNMV Documentos de Trabaj, CNMV- Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores - Departamento de Estudios y Estadísticas.
    3. Mitchell, O.S. & Piggott, J., 2016. "Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 865-904, Elsevier.
    4. Goda, Gopi Shah & Manchester, Colleen Flaherty & Sojourner, Aaron J., 2014. "What will my account really be worth? Experimental evidence on how retirement income projections affect saving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 80-92.
    5. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2008. "Planning and Financial Literacy: How Do Women Fare?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 413-417, May.
    6. Sergio Longobardi & Margherita Maria Pagliuca & Andrea Regoli, 2018. "Can problem-solving attitudes explain the gender gap in financial literacy? Evidence from Italian students’ data," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1677-1705, July.
    7. Alfonso Arellano & Noelia Camara & David Tuesta, 2014. "El efecto de la autoconfianza en el conocimiento financiero," Working Papers 1427, BBVA Bank, Economic Research Department.
    8. Groneck, Max & Ludwig, Alexander & Zimper, Alexander, 2016. "A life-cycle model with ambiguous survival beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 137-180.
    9. Olafsson, Arna & Pagel, Michaela, 2024. "Retirement puzzles: New evidence from personal finances," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    10. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Jonas Frey, 2020. "Optimal Stopping in a Dynamic Salience Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 8496, CESifo.
    11. Lou, Zhaohui & Xie, Qizhuo & Shen, Jim Huangnan & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2024. "Does Supply Chain Finance (SCF) alleviate funding constraints of SMEs? Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    12. Gianluigi Guido & Cesare Amatulli & Andrea Sestino, 2020. "Elderly consumers and financial choices: A systematic review," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 25(3), pages 76-85, December.
    13. Stephen Foerster & Juhani T. Linnainmaa & Brian T. Melzer & Alessandro Previtero, 2017. "Retail Financial Advice: Does One Size Fit All?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1441-1482, August.
    14. Lusardi, Annamaria & Mitchell, Olivia S., 2011. "Financial literacy around the world: an overview," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 497-508, October.
    15. Marcin Kawiński & Piotr Majewski, 2017. "Financial and insurance literacy in Poland," Working Papers 2017-03, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    16. Lusardi, Annamaria & Michaud, Pierre-Carl & Mitchell, Olivia S., 2020. "Assessing the impact of financial education programs: A quantitative model," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Benítez-Silva, Hugo & Eren, Selçuk & Heiland, Frank & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi, 2015. "How well do individuals predict the selling prices of their homes?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 12-25.
    18. Giovanni Gallo & Costanza Torricelli & Arthur van Soest, 2016. "Individual heterogeneity and pension choices: How to communicate an effective message?," Center for the Analysis of Public Policies (CAPP) 0136, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    19. Junhao Liu & Anita Mukherjee, 2021. "Medicaid and long‐term care: The effects of penalizing strategic asset transfers," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(1), pages 53-77, March.
    20. Hyrum Smith & Michael Finke & Sandra Huston, 2012. "Financial Sophistication and Housing Leverage Among Older Households," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 315-327, September.

    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:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:1:p:22-:d:1583762. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.