Maria Forlicz

Department of Economics , Wroclaw University of Economics

Poland

mariaforlicz@interia.pl

ORCID: 0000-0001-6947-7964

Overdue debt and selected personality traits – a research based on international surveys

Tomasz Rólczyński

Department of Economics, WSB University in Wroclaw

Poland

tomasz.rolczynski@wsb.wroclaw.pl

ORCID: 0000-0002-9926-8538

Abstract. Households and individuals make various financial decisions, some of which are regarding debt. In 2018 a survey was conducted in six European countries on incurring financial liabilities and falling into debt. The survey was expected to provide insights as to the habits and attitudes of the surveyed while making debt decisions. The aim of this paper is to identify personal characteristics of debtors across different European countries and to compare the incidence of these characteristics in the groups examined across those countries. The hypothesis was that individuals who never fall into arrears differ from those who had or still have debt in terms of their personality traits. The research was carried out in Spain, Romania, Poland and Italy. Depending on the country, the sample size ranged from 802 to 1200 participants. The statistical analysis found that for most of these countries there existed significant differences between debtors and debt-free individuals regarding the level of conscientiousness, honesty, attitude towards money and shopping.

Received: November, 2018

1st Revision: February, 2019

Accepted: September, 2019

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2019/12-3/16

JEL Classification: D12, D14, G41

Keywords: overdue debt, personality traits, consumer attitudes and behaviour, international survey, chi-square test