Review of Behavioral Economics > Vol 12 > Issue 2

Health-Related Non-Financial Costs of Financial Debt on Asian Americans: Evidence from Consumer Finance Monthly Survey

Pankaj Kumar Maskara, Nova Southeastern University, USA, pmaskara@nova.edu , Gengxuan Chen, Institute of Economics, Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, China
 
Suggested Citation
Pankaj Kumar Maskara and Gengxuan Chen (2025), "Health-Related Non-Financial Costs of Financial Debt on Asian Americans: Evidence from Consumer Finance Monthly Survey", Review of Behavioral Economics: Vol. 12: No. 2, pp 143-172. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/105.00000207

Publication Date: 24 Mar 2025
© 2025 P. K. Maskara and G. Chen
 
Subjects
Behavioral Economics,  Psychology
 
Keywords
JEL Codes: A13, B55, G53
Financial debtdebt stresshealth impactAsiansAsian Americanstigma
 

Share

Download article
In this article:
Introduction 
Debt Stress and Health Impact 
Asian Culture and Debt 
Borrowing from Family and Friends 
Present Research 
Methodology 
Results 
Discussion 
Implications 
Limitations and Future Directions 
Conclusion 
References 

Abstract

We examine whether Asian Americans are more likely to report higher debt stress and health impact of debt. We find that Asians who borrowed from friends and family are more likely to report higher debt stress. For subsamples limited to other debt-types, we do not find significant coefficient for the Asian variable in the estimates of an ordered Probit model predicting debt stress. There is no evidence that Asians borrow more from friends and family, yet they report higher health impact of debt than other ethnicity/race. Since very few people borrow from friends and family and such loans comprise less than one percent of household debt, the results suggest such loan elicit very high levels of anxiety for Asians. Our findings suggest that though tighter societal networks among Asians facilitate easier access to finance at lower interest costs, their shame and stigma culture also imposes significant nonfinancial costs.

DOI:10.1561/105.00000207