The SCF collects information on whether consumers
"almost always, sometimes, or hardly ever pay off the
total balance owed on the account each month." Another
question asks: "after the last payment was made on this
account, what was the balance still owed on this
account?" We use the later, more objective measure to
classify respondents. In this study, households with a
positive balance were classified as "revolvers." About
60% were revolvers; this is comparable to industry
figures of about 60% of account holders who are
classified as revolvers (Luckett, 1997; Newton, 1997).
Most of the analyses presented here are restricted to the
subsample of revolvers.