Although credit card overspending behavior has become a critical societal concern with severe negative impacts on consumer welfare and economic stability, research on credit card overspending behavior remains fragmented and understudied. This study investigates new types of antecedents of credit card overspending behavior that are overlooked in the prior literature—the acquisition mode of credit card companies. Based on data set from a large commercial bank in China, this study measures credit card overspending behavior using consumption amount, cash withdrawal amount and overdueness, and suggests that gift acquisition has a positive effect on cash withdrawal amount and overdue probability as well as a negative effect on consumption amount. Furthermore, we find that this relationship could be weakened for female customers and for customers with higher education levels. This study provides theoretical implications for both the credit card overspending literature and customer acquisition literature. It also has important implications for consumer welfare and public policymaking.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.