Growing Household Credit Load Through the Prism of Social Perception, Credit and Political Attitudes of Russians

Review of Business and Economics Studies. 2020. Vol. 8. No. 4. P. 19–32.

Kozlov N., Новиков О. Г.

The year 2020 demonstrates another surge of civil non-conventional activism in the world due to the epidemiological situation and related government restrictive measures. In Russia, at the background of the “Corona-crisis” and falling real incomes, retail lending to households continues to proliferate, along with an increase in their overdue debt. The deteriorating economic well-being of Russians raises questions about the possibility of an increase in political protest behaviour of citizens and how much their readiness for it is affected by the deteriorating financial situation due to difficulties in paying off their loan obligations. The authors used the methods of cybermetric analysis and mass survey, examines the perception of the credit problem by Russians, their assessment of its causes and “culprits” (the state, banks and borrowers themselves). The paper also notes some trends of mutual conditionality at the individual level of credit attitudes of Russians, their financial prosperity and readiness to participate in various forms of pro-government and opposition political activity. The authors conclude that the most common conservative model of credit behaviour among Russians contributes to the latent deterioration of the subjective well-being of borrowers that not always leading to a decrease in credit payments. It, in turn, leads to a desire to share responsibility for these difficulties with creditors and the state and, probably, increases the readiness for protest activism.

Keywords: кредитное поведение, credit behavior, protest activity, протестная активность, household debt burden, долговая нагрузка домохозяйств, credit attitudes, кредитные установки