Trajectories of Unsecured Debt across the Life Course and Mental Health at Midlife

A finite-life private-information theory of unsecured consumer debt

We present a theory of unsecured consumer debt that does not rely on utility costs of default or on enforcement mechanisms that arise in repeated-interaction settings. The theory is based on private information about a person’s type and on a person’s incentive to signal his type to entities other than creditors. Specifically, debtors signal their low-risk status to insurers by avoiding default ...

A Finite-Life Private-Information Theory of Unsecured Debt

We present a theory of unsecured consumer debt that recognizes a debtor’s legal right to default. Our theory does not rely on psychological costs of default (or stigma) nor does it rely on enforcement mechanisms that arise in repeated-game settings. Our theory is based on private information about a person’s type and on a person’s incentive to signal his type by avoiding default in the credit m...

Finite-Life Private Information Theory of Unsecured Debt

Unsecured consumer debt and mental health outcomes in middle-aged and older Americans.

OBJECTIVES Unsecured consumer debt may affect well-being negatively. We evaluated the association between unsecured debt and two distinct outcomes: depressive symptomatology and psychological well-being. METHOD Data were obtained from the 2006 Health and Retirement Study. There were 5,817 adults aged ≥ 51 who responded to a core survey and psychosocial leave-behind questionnaire. Depressive s...

Conscientiousness and Health Across the Life Course

This article provides an overview of the role conscientiousness plays in the health process over the life course. The authors describe their research on the underlying structure of conscientiousness and how conscientiousness predicts social environmental factors and health behaviors that have a known relationship to health and longevity. The authors then show that conscientiousness continues to...