Credit Card Borrowing and the Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) Gene
34 Pages Posted: 20 Aug 2009 Last revised: 27 Feb 2014
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
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
The Neural Basis of Financial Risk Taking
By Camelia M. Kuhnen and Brian Knutson
-
Genetic Variation in Financial Decision Making
By David Cesarini, Magnus Johannesson, ...
-
Genetic Determinants of Financial Risk Taking
By Camelia M. Kuhnen and Joan Y. Chiao
-
Nucleus Accumbens Activation Mediates the Influence of Reward Cues on Financial Risk-Taking
By Brian Knutson, G. Elliott Wimmer, ...
-
Childhood Determinants of Risk Aversion: The Long Shadow of Compulsory Education
By Dmytro Hryshko, Maria Jose Luengo-prado, ...
-
Anticipation of Monetary Gain but Not Loss in Healthy Older Adults
-
Focusing on Desirability: The Effect of Decision Interruption and Suspension on Preferences
By Wendy Liu
-
Individual Differences in Insular Sensitivity During Loss Anticipation Predict Avoidance Learning
-
Born to Lead? A Twin Design and Genetic Association Study of Leadership Role Occupancy
By Jan‐emmanuel De Neve, Slava Mikhaylov, ...