Credit Card Borrowing and the Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) Gene

De Neve, Jan‐Emmanuel; Fowler, James H.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1457224

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Credit Card Borrowing and the Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) Gene

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Forthcoming

34 Pages Posted: 20 Aug 2009 Last revised: 27 Feb 2014

See all articles by Jan‐Emmanuel De Neve

James H. Fowler

UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences; University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health

Date Written: February 27, 2014

Abstract

Using a discovery and replication sample from a U.S. representative data set, we show that a functional polymorphism on the MAOA gene is associated with credit card borrowing behavior. For the combined sample of approximately 12,000 individuals we find that having one or both MAOA alleles of the less transcriptionally efficient type raises the average likelihood of reporting credit card debt by about 4%. These results suggest that behavioral models benet from integrating genetic variation and that economists should consider the welfare consequences of possible discrimination by lenders on the basis of genotype.

Keywords: Credit card borrowing, present-biased time preferences, MAOA gene, genetic association study

JEL Classification: D14, D91, G02

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel and Fowler, James H. and Fowler, James H., Credit Card Borrowing and the Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) Gene (February 27, 2014). Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1457224 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1457224