We use the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to revisit what is termed the credit card debt puzzle: why consumers simultaneously co-hold high-interest credit card debt and low-interest assets that could be used to pay down this debt. Relative to individuals with no credit card debt but positive liquid assets, borrower-savers have very different perceptions of future credit access risk and use credit cards for precautionary motives. Moreover, changing perceptions about credit access risk are essential for predicting transitions among the two groups. Preferences and the composition of financial portfolios also play a role in these transitions.

This article estimates marginal propensities to consume (MPC) out of current and lagged income for U.S. states using panel data regressions that control for time-specific and state-level fixed effects. The MPCs vary across states; in particular, the MPC out of current income is higher in states where income is more persistent, and the MPC out of lagged income is lower in agricultural states. We show that the estimated MPCs can be matched by a model of forward-looking consumers that includes all of the following features: time aggregation, durable goods, impatience, credit constraints, and risk sharing.