Borrower Heterogeneity and the (Ir)Rational Demand for Short-Term Credit

Short-term credit serves bridging short-term liquidity gaps. Instead, short-term credit is often used over an extended period of time. Such behavior could stem from individuals’ preference for immediate consumption. We thus analyze, whether short-term credit usage, specifically overdraft usage, is related to time preferences. Combining bank account data with survey responses provides us with evidence that individuals with higher implied discount rates use overdrafts more frequently. We disentangle a normative and a behavioral explanation. Our results are consistent with the existence of self-control problems in the form of present-biased
time preference.