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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Experimental Evidence On Consumption, Saving, And Family Formation Responses To Student Debt Forgiveness, Jason Jabarri, Stephen Roll, Mathieu Despard, Leah Hamilton
Experimental Evidence On Consumption, Saving, And Family Formation Responses To Student Debt Forgiveness, Jason Jabarri, Stephen Roll, Mathieu Despard, Leah Hamilton
Social Policy Institute Research
As policy-makers grapple with whether or not to forgive student debt, for who, and how much, it is important to explore how student debt forgiveness would relate to intended household decisions and behaviors. We conducted a survey experiment that asked participants with student debt to imagine a scenario in which the federal government forgave a certain amount of student debt. We then had these participants report on how this would affect their decisions and behaviors. 1,053 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that offered $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, and complete debt forgiveness. Our results indicate that student debt …
“Robbing Peter To Pay Paul”: Economic And Cultural Explanations For How Lower-Income Families Manage Debt, Laura M. Tach, Sara Sternberg Greene
“Robbing Peter To Pay Paul”: Economic And Cultural Explanations For How Lower-Income Families Manage Debt, Laura M. Tach, Sara Sternberg Greene
Faculty Scholarship
This article builds upon classic economic perspectives of financial behavior by applying the narrative identity perspective of cultural sociology to explain how lower-income families respond to indebtedness. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with 194 lower-income household heads, we show that debt management strategies are influenced by a desire to promote a financially responsible, self-sufficient social identity. Families are reluctant to ask for assistance when faced with economic hardship because it undermines this identity. Because the need to pay on debts is less acute than the need to pay for regular monthly expenses like rent or groceries, debts receive a lower …