The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the increase in the proportion of U.S. households with financial obligations greater than 40% of income was due to mistakes or over-optimism. The proportion of households paying more than 40% of income for debt, rent, vehicle leases, property...

The Survey of Consumer Finances was used to assess the explanatory power of self-control mechanisms, controlling for other important constructs from the standard life cycle model of saving. The analysis focused on saving goals, foreseeable expenses, and saving rules as mechanisms of...

This study used data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study to analyze the adoption of mobile payments by U.S. households. While 24% of respondents used mobile payments, the mean rate for those under age 25 was 11 times the rate for those 65 and older. State rates ranged from about 9%...

This study examines the factors affecting household saving, extending previous research by adding measures of consumer optimism to the variables previous investigators used to analyze saving behavior. In addition to expectations about household income and the economy, we create an optimism...

A life-cycle savings model was tested to analyze consumption patterns of elderly U.S. households, using the 1990 and 1991 BLS Interview Survey of Consumer Expenditures. The model implies substantial, planned decreases in consumption after retirement, regardless of income patterns. The empirical...

We examine household saving in the context of a prescriptive model. Using Survey of Consumer Finances data sets in the 1995-2004 period, 57% of households reported spending less than income. Many effects in the multivariate analysis are consistent with a prescriptive model. We discuss other...