According to a paper published at the Federal Reserve Board, people tend to form relationships with others who have a similar credit score to them.Lucky Business
Over at the U.S. central bank, the jury's still out on whether inflation's set to trend back toward policy-makers' 2-per-cent target.
But a new working paper published at the Federal Reserve Board draws some conclusions that might help prevent your heart from deflating.
Let's just say you'll never look at credit reports the same way again.
Economists Jane Dokko, Geng Li and Jessica Hayes presented their findings about the role that credit scores have in predicting the stability and potential longevity of a relationship that's starting to get serious.
The trio scoured quarterly data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Consumer Credit Panel, based on information provided by Equifax that includes a "risk score" of an individual's probability of failing to meet their credit obligations in the not-too-distant future. Because personal identifiers are stripped from the data by Equifax prior to delivery, the researchers are agnostic as to whether the couples they identify are married or merely cohabiting.
"In light of the growing prominence of credit scores in households' economic and financial opportunities, we are interested in their role in household formation and dissolution," they write, noting that their analysis centres on the initial match in credit scores and quality at the time a committed relationship begins.
The start of a committed relationship is marked by the quarter in which two individuals who did not share an address begin to do so, and, for the purposes of this study, requires that they live together for a minimum of one year. Other filters are applied to the data in attempt to minimize false positives.
Here's a summary of their findings:
- People with higher credit scores are more likely to be in a committed relationship and stay together;
- People tend to form relationships with others who have a similar credit score as them;
- The strength of the match, both in the headline credit score and its details, is predictive of whether or not a couple are more likely to break up for observable reasons pertaining to finance and household spending;
- Credit scores are indicative of trustworthiness in general, and couples with a mismatch in credit scores are more likely to see their relationships end for reasons not directly related to their use of credit.
Those are some pretty bold conclusions to draw. But the proof, the economists say, is in the numbers – and although correlation doesn't equal causation, in some instances their results also have both practical and intuitive underpinnings.
Controlling for other factors, individuals whose credit scores are one standard deviation above the mean are 14 per cent more likely to enter into a committed relationship over the next year than average, according to the economists. In other words, if you've had trouble meeting your financial obligations, your wherewithal to stay current with someone else's life is also probably suspect.
The results indicate that these partnerships are more likely to endure.
"Among the relationships that survive the first two years, a one standard deviation increase in the initial average credit score implies a 37 per cent lower chance of separation during the third and the fourth years of the relationship," wrote the economists.
Credit scores, the economists reason, have a real impact on how financially intertwined two individuals will become.
Couples that have similar credit histories are more likely to take on joint ownership of a mortgage, the researchers discovered. Taking on this burden together could therefore be perceived as a pair of financial handcuffs, or something that raises the transaction cost in the event of a breakup.
On the other hand, a chasm between credit scores suggests that a couple's access to financing, or good terms on those funds, could be impeded and blamed upon one individual. That's a recipe for tension.
So the next time your significant other asks, "What's your number?", you might want to make sure you're on the same wavelength before answering.