Guiltily indebted? How a word is linked to individual borrowing

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using data from the World Values Survey, we show that individuals who speak a language in which the same word is used for both (financial) debt and (moral) guilt have a statistically significant and economically meaningful lower likelihood of borrowing money. This relationship holds even after controlling for a range of covariates, fixed effects, grammatical future tense reference, and the Germanic language family. Our results suggest that the synonymity of debt and guilt may be a hitherto overlooked aspect in explaining borrowing behaviour.