Abstract
We examine determinants of the objective and subjective financial fragility of 2100 individuals across Australia, France, Germany, and South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective financial fragility reflects individuals' (in)ability to deal with unexpected expenses, while subjective financial fragility reflects their emotional response to financial demands. Controlling for an extensive set of socio-demographics, we find that negative personal experiences during the pandemic (i.e., reduced or lost employment; COVID-19 infection) are associated with higher objective and subjective financial fragility. However, individuals' cognitive (i.e., financial literacy) as well as non-cognitive abilities (i.e., internal locus of control; psychological resilience) help to counteract this higher financial fragility. Finally, we examine the role of government financial support (i.e., income support; debt relief) and find that it is negatively related to financial fragility only for the economically weakest households. Our results have implica-tions for public policymakers, providing levers for reducing individuals' objective and subjective financial fragility.& COPY; 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Original language | English |
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Article number | 106881 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Journal of Banking & Finance |
Volume | 153 |
Early online date | 1 May 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 2023 |
JEL classifications
- d14 - Personal Finance
Keywords
- Financial fragility
- Financial literacy
- Government support
- Internal locus of control
- Psychological resilience
- NONCOGNITIVE ABILITIES
- RESILIENCE
- LITERACY
- DISTRESS
- LOCUS