IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2004-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Convenience or necessity? understanding the recent rise in credit card debt

Author

Abstract

Economist disagree whether the recent increase in credit card debt has been detrimental to U.S. household. However, many rely on a measure of revolving credit published by the Federal Reserve, which captures transactions in which a credit card is used because of its advantages over cash or a check. An increase in debt stemming from such convenience use likely would not signal greater financial vulnerability for households. In this paper, I present evidence that some of the significant increase in both the level of credit card debt and it growth from 1992 to 2001 was due to convenience use.

Suggested Citation

  • Kathleen W. Johnson, 2004. "Convenience or necessity? understanding the recent rise in credit card debt," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-47, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2004-47
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2004/200447/200447abs.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2004/200447/200447pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher D. Carroll, 1997. "Buffer-Stock Saving and the Life Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 1-55.
    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. Irina A. Telyukova, 2013. "Household Need for Liquidity and the Credit Card Debt Puzzle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 1148-1177.
    2. Andrew Kish, 2006. "Perspectives on recent trends in consumer debt," Consumer Finance Institute discussion papers 06-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    3. Elizabeth C. Klee, 2006. "Families' use of payment instruments during a decade of change in the U.S. payment system," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-01, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Marques Benton & Stephan Meier & Charles Sprenger, 2007. "Overborrowing and undersaving: lessons and policy implications from research in behavioral economics," Public and Community Affairs Discussion Papers 2007-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

    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. Anders Klevmarken, & Joseph P. Lupton & Frank P. Stafford, 2003. "Wealth Dynamics in the 1980s and 1990s: Sweden and the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(2).
    2. John Geanakoplos & Robert Axtell & J. Doyne Farmer & Peter Howitt & Benjamin Conlee & Jonathan Goldstein & Matthew Hendrey & Nathan M. Palmer & Chun-Yi Yang, 2012. "Getting at Systemic Risk via an Agent-Based Model of the Housing Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 53-58, May.
    3. Charles Grant & Christos Koulovatianos & Alexander Michaelides & Mario Padula, 2010. "Evidence on the Insurance Effect of Redistributive Taxation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 965-973, November.
    4. Antonia Diaz & Maria Jose Luengo Prado, 2008. "On the User Cost and Homeownership," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 584-613, July.
    5. Aydilek, Asiye, 2016. "The allocation of time and puzzling profiles of the elderly," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 515-526.
    6. Mark Sommer & Kurt Kratena, 2016. "The Carbon Footprint of European Households and Income Distribution. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 113," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 58787.
    7. Mark Sommer & Raimund Kurzmann, 2016. "Kurzbeschreibung der Modelllandschaft im Projekt "Beschäftigungsmultiplikatoren und die Besetzung von Arbeitsplätzen in Österreich"," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 58838.
    8. Alexander L. Brown & Zhikang Eric Chua & Colin F. Camerer, 2009. "Learning and Visceral Temptation in Dynamic Saving Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 197-231.
    9. Bartzsch Nikolaus, 2008. "Precautionary Saving and Income Uncertainty in Germany – New Evidence from Microdata," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 228(1), pages 5-24, February.
    10. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    11. Don Schlagenhauf & Bryan Noeth & Carlos Garriga, 2015. "Aggregate and Distributional Dynamics of Consumer Credit in the U. S," 2015 Meeting Papers 1095, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Giuseppe Bertola & Luigi Guiso & Luigi Pistaferri, 2005. "Uncertainty and Consumer Durables Adjustment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 973-1007.
    13. Dmitriy Sergeyev & Chen Lian & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2023. "The Economics of Financial Stress," NBER Working Papers 31285, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Nakata, Taisuke & Ogaki, Ryota & Schmidt, Sebastian & Yoo, Paul, 2019. "Attenuating the forward guidance puzzle: Implications for optimal monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 90-106.
    15. Hero Ashman & Seth Neumuller, 2020. "Can Income Differences Explain the Racial Wealth Gap: A Quantitative Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 220-239, January.
    16. Jemey, Nursyuhada binti & Kasim, Nor Hasniah binti, 2023. "The Impact of Covid-19 on Consumption Patterns Among Malaysian Youths," MPRA Paper 118841, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 Sep 2023.
    17. Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo, 2004. "Consumption Theory," Handbooks, Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England, number 23, April.
    18. Aguiar, M. & Hurst, E., 2016. "The Macroeconomics of Time Allocation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 203-253, Elsevier.
    19. Anna Sokolova, 2023. "Marginal Propensity to Consume and Unemployment: a Meta-analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 813-846, December.
    20. Michael Haliassos & Alexander Michaelides, 2003. "Portfolio Choice and Liquidity Constraints," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(1), pages 143-177, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Credit cards; Debt;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fip:fedgfe:2004-47. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    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.