Control variables
The purpose of this paper is to study the relationships in the STL framework before and after the financial crisis. However,
a number of financial market, customer–seller, and consumer financial factors may be related to the endogenous constructs in the STL framework, and their effects should therefore be taken into account (e.g., Johansson et al.,
2012). These factors, which are included as control variables in the study, include financial market functioning, time duration of consumers’ relationship with their bank, consumer financial healthiness, consumer financial knowledge, and
consumer financial involvement. Although the control variables are not the focus of this study, controlling for their effects provides a stronger test of the proposed hypotheses
(Greene, 2000).