10 1093@rof@rfaa013

ADHD Symptoms and Financial Distress
Chi Liao
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/rof/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/rof/rfaa013/5824803 by University of Canberra user on 28 April 2020

Asper School of Business
University of Manitoba
Email: chi.liao@umanitoba.ca
April 14, 2020
Abstract
We examine the effect of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on individual-

level financial distress. ADHD is the most common mental disorder among children and
is characterized by behaviors such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness that
interfere with school and home life. In a representative panel, we find that individuals with
more severe ADHD symptoms during childhood have more difficulty paying bills and are
more likely to be delinquent on bill payments in adulthood. Further, those with more severe
symptoms are less likely to have precautionary savings and more likely to have to delay
buying necessities. These effects exist across the full range of ADHD symptom scores, and
are not driven by the most severe cases of ADHD; this is consistent with recent evidence that
ADHD symptoms occur on a continuum. Preliminary evidence suggests that medication for
behavioral issues may mitigate the effect of ADHD symptoms on financial distress.
JEL classifications: D10, D14, G41
Keywords: Household finance, ADHD, Financial decision making
∗ I thank Vicki Bogan, Lisa Kramer, Hersh Shefrin, Kelly Shue (the editor), an anonymous
editor, and an anonymous referee for very helpful comments that have significantly improved this
paper. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada.
©The Authors 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Finance Association. All
rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
ADHD Symptoms and Financial Distress

Abstract
We examine the effect of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on individual-

level financial distress. ADHD is the most common mental disorder among children and
is characterized by behaviors such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness that
interfere with school and home life. In a representative panel, we find that individuals with
more severe ADHD symptoms during childhood have more difficulty paying bills and are
more likely to be delinquent on bill payments in adulthood. Further, those with more severe
symptoms are less likely to have precautionary savings and more likely to have to delay
buying necessities. These effects exist across the full range of ADHD symptom scores, and
are not driven by the most severe cases of ADHD; this is consistent with recent evidence that
ADHD symptoms occur on a continuum. Preliminary evidence suggests that medication for
behavioral issues may mitigate the effect of ADHD symptoms on financial distress.
1
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common mental health is-
sue facing children today (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013; Danielson et

al., 2018). Recent estimates indicate that 9.4% of school-aged children have been diagnosed
with ADHD; this amounts to over 6.1 million children with the condition in the United
States alone (Danielson et al., 2018). Since the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report highlighted
the prevalence of childhood mental and behavioral disorders two decades earlier (US De-
partment of Health and Human Services, 1999), studies have shown that childhood ADHD
is associated with lower educational attainment (Miech et al., 1999; Currie and Stabile,
2006; Fletcher and Wolfe, 2008), decreased employment and earnings (Kuriyan et al., 2013;
Fletcher, 2014), higher health care costs (Hodgkins et al., 2011), and higher rates of criminal
delinquency (Nagin and Tremblay, 1999; Fletcher and Wolfe, 2009).
ADHD is a neurobehavioral disorder characterized by inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and
impulsivity resulting in a failure to pay close attention to detail, careless mistakes, and
difficulty organizing tasks and activities (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Given
these issues, those with ADHD are likely to have difficulties with financial decision making,
which requires diligence and attention to detail, as well as the ability to stay organized
and meet deadlines. Currently, there is a lack of empirical evidence documenting the effect
of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes. Given the prevalence of this disorder and the
challenges those with ADHD already face, it is important to determine whether those with
ADHD are also disadvantaged when it comes to their financial health and well-being.
We study the effect of childhood ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes in adulthood
using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) Child and Young Adult (CYA)
cohort, a longitudinal data set that starting in 1986 follows approximately 6,000 individuals
from early childhood through to adulthood.1 We construct a measure of ADHD symptom

1
The Children of the NLSY79 survey is sponsored and directed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. The survey is managed by the Center
for Human Resource Research at the Ohio State University and interviews are conducted by the National
2
severity from this dataset using a set of questions posed to mothers about the behavior of
their children who are between the ages of 4 and 14. The NLSY79 CYA follows these children

as they move into adulthood at which point the dataset also contains detailed information
about their employment and income and starting in 2010, comprehensive information about
their financial outcomes.
We find a strong, positive relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial distress.
Those with more severe ADHD symptoms earlier in life subsequently experience more diffi-
culty paying their bills, are more likely to be delinquent on bill and loan payments, and are
more likely to have an account in collection. Further, those with more severe symptoms are
less likely to have emergency savings, are more likely to have to delay buying necessities,
and are more likely have money shortages at the end of the month. The magnitudes of these
effects are economically meaningful. Relative to sample averages, a one standard deviation
increase in ADHD symptom severity corresponds to a 9.6% increase in having at least some
difficulty paying bills, a 15.9% increase in late bill payment, a 15.0% increase in having an
account in collection, a 9.4% decrease in having emergency savings, a 8.7% increase in having
to delay buying necessities at least occasionally, and a 10.6% increase in the probability of
not having enough to make ends meet.
These relationships remain after controlling for education, income, net worth, cognitive
ability, and risk tolerance. Further, our results are robust to controlling for non-cognitive
abilities including the Big-Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraver-
sion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) and self-efficacy, which have been linked to financial
outcomes and delinquency (Kuhnen and Melzer, 2018; Parise and Peijnenburg, 2019). We
use sibling fixed effects to address potential omitted variables bias at the family level (Currie
and Stabile, 2006; Fletcher and Wolfe, 2008). The inclusion of sibling fixed effects accounts
for unobserved family-level hereditary and environmental predictors of ADHD symptoms

Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
3
(Faraone et al., 2005; Lesch et al., 2008; Sharp, McQuillin, and Gurling, 2009); as a result,
any estimated variation comes entirely from differences in ADHD symptoms between sib-

lings within a family. Despite this conservative test, we generally find that ADHD symptom
severity remains negatively associated with financial outcomes, but that family-level hetero-
geneity accounts for the relationships between ADHD symptoms and late debt payment as
well as payday loans. An important caveat to our findings is that the relationship between
ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes we provide evidence for may not necessarily be
causal. While we control for observable individual-level differences as well as family-level
unobservables using sibling fixed effects, it is possible that there remain omitted variables
we cannot account for using the NLSY79 CYA data.
ADHD has been classified into three main presentations based on symptom types: inat-
tentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). We
explore the relative effects of inattentive versus hyperactive-impulsive symptoms of ADHD
and find that hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are more strongly associated with having
difficulty paying bills, late debt payments, accounts in collection, credit card debt, and
emergency funds. Further, the effect of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes does not
appear to be driven by those with the most severe symptoms, rather, the effect exists across
the full range of ADHD symptom scores, consistent with recent evidence in the medical lit-
erature that ADHD symptoms occur on a continuum with little evidence of a clear “ADHD
threshold” (see McLennan, 2016 for a review). Lastly, we provide preliminary evidence for
the mitigating properties of medication on financial distress. We find that more consis-
tent treatment via medication in young adulthood mitigates the negative effect of ADHD
symptoms on financial outcomes, however, treatment levels in childhood have little effect on
financial outcomes in adulthood.
Our finding that ADHD symptoms are disadvantageous for financial health and well-
4
being complements the recent literature in financial economics studying the role of mental
health on financial decision making. Bogan and Fertig (2012) show that mental health issues,

such as depression, can reduce the likelihood of risky asset holdings by up to 19%. Those
who suffer from heightened depression in the fall and winter, also known as seasonal affective
disorder (SAD), become more risk averse in the fall and winter (Kramer and Weber, 2012)
resulting in lower demand for risky stocks and mutual funds (Kamstra, Kramer, and Levi,
2003; Kamstra et al., 2017). Further, those with mental health issues are less likely to have
retirement savings and save at much lower rates (Bogan and Fertig, 2018). We contribute
to this literature by exploring how ADHD, a common mental health issue in children, can
affect financial outcomes in adulthood.
Recent studies show that non-cognitive abilities affect financial decision making. Kuhnen
and Melzer (2018) and Parise and Peijnenburg (2019) examine the role of non-cognitive
abilities on financial delinquency and distress. Using the NLSY79 CYA, Kuhnen and Melzer
(2018) show that self-efficacy, one’s belief that they are able to achieve goals and influence
the future, is associated with a lower likelihood of financial delinquency because those with
higher self-efficacy believe that their actions can reduce the chance of default and will thus
exert effort accordingly. Parise and Peijnenburg (2019) show that individual-level emotional
stability and conscientiousness are negatively related to financial delinquency primarily due
to poor financial choices and lower financial insight. We contribute to this recent literature
by showing that, in addition to non-cognitive abilities, disorders such as ADHD can increase
the probability of financial distress and lower financial well-being in adulthood.
Lastly, our results contribute to the growing literature studying the outcomes of chil-
dren with ADHD symptoms. The risks associated with ADHD are significant. ADHD has
been linked to obesity (Fuemmeler et al., 2011), substance abuse and psychiatric disor-
ders (Lackschewitz, Hüther, and Kröner-Herwig, 2008; Knecht et al., 2015), higher health
5
care costs (Hodgkins et al., 2011), lower standardized test scores and academic achievement
(Mannuzza et al., 1993; Miech et al., 1999; Currie and Stabile, 2006; Fletcher and Wolfe,

2008), and criminal delinquency (Nagin and Tremblay, 1999; Fletcher and Wolfe, 2009;
Knecht et al., 2015). In the context of the work environment, ADHD has been associated
with decreased employment and earnings (Weiss and Hechtman, 1993; Kuriyan et al., 2013;
Fletcher, 2014), a higher likelihood of being fired (Barkley et al., 2006), lower supervisor-
rated performance (Weiss and Hechtman, 1993; Barkley et al., 2006), and more frequent job
changes (Toner, O’Donoghue, and Houghton, 2006). In the psychology and medical litera-
tures, ADHD symptoms have been linked with compulsive credit card use by college students
(Graziano et al., 2015), fewer savings accounts in young adulthood (Barkley et al., 2006),
and higher financial stress from worrying about job loss (Brook et al., 2013). Beauchaine,
Ben-David, and Sela (2017) use a cross-sectional Amazon Mechanical Turk sample and find
that ADHD symptoms are associated with delay discounting, credit card balances and late
payments, the use of pawn services, personal debt, and more frequent job changes. We
extend the findings in these studies by using a representative U.S. panel that allows us to
examine the long-term effects of childhood ADHD symptoms on a comprehensive set of
financial outcomes in adulthood.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 1, we discuss ADHD
symptoms and its relationship with financial outcomes. We describe the NLSY79 CYA data
in Section 2 and present our results in Section 3. We conclude in Section 4.
1. ADHD Symptoms and Financial Outcomes
ADHD involves behavioral, cognitive, and affective difficulties that typically emerge in child-
hood (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
2013). Polanczyk et al. (2007)’s meta-analysis suggests a 5.29% prevalence rate worldwide,
6
with higher estimates of 9.4% to 11% found in the U.S. (Visser et al., 2014; Danielson et al.,
2018). While often diagnosed in children, longitudinal data suggests that 50% to 70% of

children with ADHD continue to show ADHD symptoms in adulthood (Biederman et al.,
2010; Mannuzza, Klein, and Moulton III, 2003; Faraone et al., 2006).
ADHD symptoms include impairment of sustained motivation, attention, response inhi-
bition, incentive processing, and working memory (Hervey, Epstein, and Curry, 2004; Hurst
et al., 2011; Volkow et al., 2011; Beauchaine, Ben-David, and Sela, 2017), which manifest as
disorganization, forgetfulness, unreliability, as well as difficulty in planning, task completion,
and time management (Barkley, 2010; Karam et al., 2009). These symptoms are likely to
interfere with financial decision making which requires one to stay organized, pay careful
attention to detail, develop plans and budgets, focus and follow through on specific tasks,
and meet deadlines. Those with more severe symptoms may find it difficult to do so and
as a result be less likely to adhere to tasks such as paying their bills and loans on time,
developing and following a budget, or maintaining a good credit score that will allow them
to secure debt through traditional avenues.
The planner-doer model of self-control developed by Thaler and Shefrin (1981), Shefrin
and Thaler (1988), and Shefrin (2019) can shed light on the role ADHD symptoms play in
shaping financial outcomes. The myopic (i.e., selfish) doer is concerned only about present
consumption, whereas the planner is concerned with lifetime utility. Since self-control is
costly, the doer’s actions are often modified via rules and incentives (e.g., pension plans) in
order for the planner’s plan (e.g., saving for retirement) to be implemented. Heterogeneity in
self-control thus plays a role in the degree to which households both create and follow through
on budgets and plans (Shefrin, 2019). ADHD symptoms essentially increase the cost of self-
control needed to perform various tasks that are necessary to maintain good financial health.
This makes it more difficult for one to adhere to tasks such as paying bills and loans on time,
7
developing and following a budget to ensure that finances are in order, or maintaining a good
credit score that will allow a person to secure debt through traditional avenues. As a result,

the severity of ADHD symptoms may be one factor explaining heterogeneity in financial
outcomes.
1.1 Measuring ADHD Symptoms
Consistent with the economics literature studying ADHD, we construct a measure of ADHD
based on questions posed to mothers about the behavior of their children (Currie and Stabile,
2006; Fletcher and Wolfe, 2008; Currie, Stabile, and Jones, 2014). Starting in 1986, the
NLSY79 CYA contains assessments using the Behavior Problems Index (BPI) developed by
Achenbach and Edelbrock (1981) and Peterson and Zill (1986) to measure mothers’ ratings
of the type and extent of childhood behavioral problems. The BPI, which is comprised of
six subscales, is administered to mothers with children between the ages of 4 and 14. As
in Currie and Stabile (2006), we use the subscale measuring “hyperactivity” which includes
questions similar to those outlined by the American Psychiatric Association to diagnose
ADHD (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Mothers are asked whether their child
has exhibited the five following behaviors in the previous three months: (1) “has difficulty
concentrating, cannot pay attention for long;” (2) “is easily confused, seems to be in a
fog;” (3) “is impulsive, or acts without thinking;” (4) “is restless or overly active, cannot
sit still;” and (5) “has a lot of difficulty getting [his/her] mind off certain thoughts.” The
mother indicates how often each behavior applies to their child on a scale of 1 (often true),
2 (sometimes true), and 3 (not true). We reverse the scores so that higher values correspond
to more severe ADHD symptoms. To measure the general severity of ADHD symptoms, we
take the average of the sum of the five scores for each survey wave from 1986 to 2008, which
results in a total raw score that ranges from 5 to 15 (Currie and Stabile, 2006; Fletcher
and Wolfe, 2008; Currie, Stabile, and Jones, 2014). We assign individuals a percentile rank
8
based on their raw scores and use this percentile measure in our analyses to simplify the
interpretation of the estimated effect of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes.2

One of the strengths of the NLSY79 CYA data is that our measure is generated from a
set of questions asked to all mothers with children between the ages of 4 and 14 in a large,
nationally representative, longitudinal data set. It captures a set of ADHD symptoms that
is not dependent on an ADHD diagnosis. This avoids measurement error due to using health
measures based only on the set of children who seek medical care and meet the threshold for
diagnosis which, for example, may bias the sample to include only children whose parents
have medical coverage (Frank and Gertler, 1991). Diagnosis rates may also vary in response
to regulatory changes, such as changes to Medicaid during the 2000s, which may make it
more or less difficult for children to receive diagnosis (Chorniy, Currie, and Sonchak, 2018).
Further, there remains controversy over whether ADHD is may medically be over- or under-
diagnosed relative to its true prevalence (Sciutto and Eisenberg, 2007; Merten et al., 2017).
Our measure of ADHD symptom severity avoids these measurement issues.
2. Data
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) Child and Young Adult (CYA) panel
is a longitudinal dataset available biennially from 1986 to 2016 that follows the children of the
original NLSY 1979 cohort (Bureau of Labor Statistics, for Child Health, and Development,
2017). Our sample includes 5,788 individuals for whom we have full information on both
ADHD symptoms during childhood as well as financial outcomes in adulthood. The ADHD
symptom score is constructed for each individual using survey data from 1986 to 2008 and
pre-dates our financial outcome variables which are available only in 2010, 2012, and 2014.
The sample is comprised of data from the 2010, 2012, and 2014 survey waves for individuals
who are at least 21 years old and most likely to be financially independent.
2
Results are similar using the raw score instead of the percentile score.
9
2.1 Summary Statistics
Table 1 contains summary statistics for 11,674 individual-year observations. There are 5,788

unique individuals who, on average, each participate in 2.02 survey waves. In Panel A, the
average ADHD symptom score is 7.13 with a standard deviation of 1.66 on a scale that
ranges from 5 to 15. To allow for a more intuitive interpretation of our results, we rescale
the ADHD symptom score using each person’s percentile rank among the 5,788 individuals
in our sample and use the ADHD symptom percentile, which ranges from 0.04 to 0.99, in
all analyses going forward. The sample is 47.19% male and 27.03 years old on average.
Like other studies using the NLSY79 CYA, our sample includes a high proportion of Latino
and Black individuals (21.65% and 34.89%, respectively) due to the oversampling of these
minorities in the original NLSY. 15.92% of the sample has completed at least a college degree
and 23.69% of the sample is married.
In addition to demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, we control for risk tol-
erance and cognitive ability which have both been linked to ADHD (Berlin, Bohlin, and
Rydell, 2004; Biederman et al., 2004; Williams and Taylor, 2005; Barkley et al., 2006; Seid-
man, 2006; Lambek et al., 2011; Linnér et al., 2019). We obtain measures of risk tolerance
and cognitive ability from NLSY79 CYA interviews between 1986 and 2008. We measure
risk tolerance using individuals’ propensity towards risky behaviors based on their level of
agreement with three statements: “I enjoy new and exciting experiences, even if they are a
little frightening or unusual,” “I enjoy taking risks,” and “Life with no danger in it would
be too dull for me.” Each individual rates their agreement with each statement on a scale
of 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree), resulting in a total summed raw score that
ranges from 3 to 12. As with our ADHD symptom score, we use the percentile rank of risk
tolerance in our regression analysis. To measure cognitive ability, we use percentile scores
adjusted for age on the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) and the Peabody
10
Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), which are standardized tests of scholastic achievement.
The PIAT tests math ability, reading recognition, and reading comprehension, whereas the

PPVT is a test of receptive vocabulary ability. For each of these four test components,
we take the average percentile score across interviews from 1986 to 2008 and then use the
average across the four percentile scores as our measure of cognitive ability.
Panel B contains financial characteristics for our sample in the 2010, 2012, and 2014
survey waves. The average individual in the sample lives in a household with income of
$32,857, assets of $39,399, and debt of $25,996. Our measure of assets includes only vehicles
and homes and our measure of debt includes debt on vehicles, homes, and credit cards.3
Net worth (the difference between assets and debt) is $13,403 on average and leverage (debt
divided by assets) is 0.54 on average. There are 7,681 observations for leverage due to missing
values when assets equal zero. For the full sample, 16.34% have mortgage debt, 29.76% have
credit card debt, and 32.69% have vehicle debt outstanding in the current or prior survey
wave. For the subsample that owns a home, 83.97% have mortgage debt. For the subsample
that owns a credit card, 70.58% have credit card debt, and for the subsample that owns a
vehicle, 48.76% have vehicle debt.
In the 2010, 2012, and 2014 survey waves, the NLSY79 CYA includes questions about
financial outcomes; these variables will serve as the key outcome variables in our analysis.
On a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all), 2 (a little difficulty), 3 (some difficulty), 4 (quite a bit
of difficulty), and 5 (a great deal of difficulty), individuals are asked to indicate how much
difficulty they had paying bills in the past 12 months. 61.49% of the sample had at least
a little difficulty paying their bills. For the full sample, 12.30% have been at least 60 days
late on a bill payment in the past 12 months, 5.92% have gotten a loan from a payday or
other store-front lender in the past 12 months, and only 34.65% have enough emergency or
rainy day saving set aside to cover expenses for three months. There are fewer observations
3
The NLSY79 CYA does not contain questions about financial asset ownership.
11
for emergency savings because this question is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey
waves. On a scale of 1 (never), 2 (rarely), 3 (occasionally), 4 (frequently), and 5 (all the

time), participants also rated how often they need to “...put off buying something [they]
need–such as food, clothing, medical care, or housing–because [they] don’t have money.”
28.81% of the sample had to delay buying necessities either occasionally, frequently, or all
the time. Lastly, participants were asked whether over the past 12 months, they generally
ended up with: more than enough money left over (1), some money left over (2), just enough
to make ends meet (3), or not enough to make ends meet (4) at the end of the month. 45.06%
of sample participants reported having just enough or not enough to make ends meet.
Panel C reports additional financial characteristics for the subsample with debt outstand-
ing in the current or prior survey wave. Late debt is an indicator variable that equals one
if an individual has been at least 60 days late on a mortgage, vehicle loan, or credit card
payment in the past 12 months. Of the subsample with debt outstanding, 15.73% have been
late on debt payments, 19.65% have had an account sent to a collection agency, 0.76% have
had a property foreclosed on, 1.98% have had an asset repossessed, and 1.25% have filed
for bankruptcy. Given the small incidence of these outcomes in any given year, we com-
bine foreclosure, repossession, and bankruptcy into one category in the following regression
analyses.
3. Results
3.1 ADHD Symptoms and Financial Distress
Table 2 presents coefficient estimates for the relationship between ADHD symptom severity
and financial distress. We use ordinary least squares regressions when the dependent variable
is binary and ordered logit regressions when the dependent variable is ordinal.4 We test the
4
Our results are similar when estimating models with binary dependent variables using a logit model
instead of a linear probability model.
12
fit and assumptions of ordered logit models in Appendix A. Standard errors are clustered
by individual in all models. For ordered logit regressions, we report coefficient estimates in

our main tables for brevity and report corresponding cutpoints as well as marginal effects
for each outcome category in Appendix B.
As predicted, in column (1) of Table 2 there is a positive relationship between child-
hood ADHD symptom severity and difficulty paying bills. In column (2), we include gender,
race, age, marital status, educational attainment, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and
risk tolerance as control variables. After including these control variables, the relationship
between ADHD symptoms and difficulty paying bills remains positive and statistically sig-
nificant. The coefficient estimates for ordered logit regressions are log-odds and cannot be
interpreted directly. While we can use an odds-ratio interpretation of the coefficients, we
opt for a somewhat more intuitive interpretation based on marginal effects for each outcome
category to discern the economic significance of the estimates from ordered logit regressions.
We report the marginal effects evaluated at the mean corresponding to each outcome cate-
gory for difficulty paying bills in columns (3) through (7) of Table B1 in Appendix B. Based
on these marginal effects, a one standard deviation increase in ADHD symptom percentile
(0.28) is associated with a 3.33 percentage point decrease in the probability of having no
difficulty paying bills, a 0.39 percentage point increase in the probability of having a little
difficulty, a 1.73 percentage point increase in the probability of having some difficulty, a 0.78
percentage point increase in the probability of having quite a bit of difficulty, and a 0.45
percentage point increase in the probability of having a great deal of difficulty paying bills.
Relative to the average frequency of responses in each category, this implies an 8.7% decrease
in the probability of having no difficulty, a 1.3% increase in the probability of having a little
difficulty, an 8.6% increase in the probability of having some difficulty, an 11.2% increase in
the probability of having quite a bit of difficulty, and an 11.9% increase in the probability
13
of having a great deal of difficulty paying bills.
These effects are economically significant relative to that of other variables. For example,

based on the marginal effects in Table B1, having a college degree is associated with a
33.2% increase in the probability of having no difficulty paying bills, a 4.9% decrease in the
probability of having a little difficulty, a 32.8% decrease in the probability of having some
difficulty, a 42.9% decrease in the probability of having quite a bit of difficulty, and a 45.2%
decrease in the probability of having a great deal of difficulty paying bills relative to the
average frequency of responses in each category. Thus, a one standard deviation increase in
ADHD symptom percentile has approximately one-quarter the magnitude of the effect of a
college degree on difficulty paying bills.
In columns (3) and (4) of Table 2, there is a positive relationship between ADHD symp-
tom severity and the probability of late bill payment in the past 12 months. The estimated
coefficient on ADHD symptoms in column (3) indicates an 11.30 percentage point increase
in the probability of a late bill payment given a 100 percentile increase in ADHD symptom
score. After including control variables, the magnitude of this estimate is 6.99 percentage
points, which translates to a 1.96 percentage point increase in late bill payments for a one
standard deviation increase in ADHD symptom severity. This increase in the probability
of late bill payment amounts to a 15.9% increase relative to the average frequency of late
bill payments in the sample (12.30%). For comparison, having a college degree decreases
the probability of a late bill payment by 4.34 percentage points and a one standard devia-
tion increase in income decreases the probability of a late bill payment by 3.58 percentage
points. Thus the effect of a one standard deviation increase in ADHD symptom percentile
has approximately one half the effect of having a college degree or a one standard increase
in income on the probability of late bill payment.
In columns (5) and (6), we estimate the effect of ADHD symptoms on late debt payment
14
using the subsample of individuals who have debt outstanding in the current or prior survey
wave. In column (6) after controlling for personal characteristics, a 100 percentile (one

standard deviation) increase in ADHD is associated with a 6.17 percentage point (1.73
percentage point) increase in the probability of late debt payment, a 39.2% (11.1%) increase
relative to the average frequency of late debt payments for the subsample of individuals with
debt outstanding. A college degree decreases the probability of late debt payment by 5.71
percentage points and a one standard deviation increase in income decreases the probability
of late debt payment by 3.22 percentage points. In terms of magnitude, a one standard
deviation increase in ADHD symptom percentile has approximately one third the effect of
having a college degree and one half the effect of a one standard increase in income on the
probability of late debt payment.
For the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave, moving
from the bottom of the ADHD symptom distribution to the top corresponds to a 10.54
percentage point increase in the probability of having an account in collection in the last 12
months (column (8)). This corresponds to a 2.95 percentage point increase in the probability
of having an account in collection for a one standard deviation increase in ADHD symptom
severity, an increase of 15.0% relative to the average frequency of having an account in
collection (19.65%). Having a college degree decreases the probability of having an account
in collection by 8.40 percentage points and a one standard deviation increase in income is
associated with a 3.58 percentage point decrease in the probability of having an account in
collection. Thus the effect of a one standard deviation increase in ADHD symptom percentile
has approximately one third the effect size of having a college degree and approximately
the same effect size as a one standard increase in income on the probability of having an
account in collection. After controlling for individual characteristics, there is no significant
relationship between ADHD symptoms and the probability of foreclosure, repossession, or
15
bankruptcy.
3.2 ADHD Symptoms and Financial Preparedness and Freedom

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2015) outlines the indicators of financial well-
being as having control over daily and monthly expenses, being able to absorb a financial
shock, and having sufficient financial security and freedom to meet financial goals and make
choices to enjoy life. We have shown that ADHD is associated with difficulties managing
monthly expenses and financial delinquency. In Table 3, we examine the relationship between
ADHD symptoms and additional financial outcomes, including financial preparedness and
financial freedom.
Financial preparedness entails having the capacity to absorb a financial shock if un-
expected expenses or emergencies arise. Having access to credit and savings will pro-
vide a “cushion” against potential unexpected shocks. In column (1) of Table 3, leverage
(debt/assets) is not significantly related to ADHD symptoms; this indicates that those with
more severe ADHD symptoms are not necessarily borrowing more relative to their assets.
In column (2), those with more severe ADHD symptoms are significantly less likely to have
a credit card. The estimated coefficient on ADHD symptoms indicates that a one standard
deviation increase in ADHD symptom severity is associated with a 2.77 percentage point
decrease in credit card ownership or a 6.6% decrease relative to the average frequency of
credit card ownership (42.16%). Of the subsample of observations where an individual owns
a credit card, those with more severe ADHD symptoms in childhood are not significantly
more likely to have credit card debt (column (3)). This suggests that credit card companies
are less likely to provide credit to those with more severe ADHD symptoms in childhood,
but that those who do have credit cards are not more likely to have credit card debt relative
to peers with less severe ADHD symptoms. Less access to credit via credit cards may result
in a need to resort to payday loans which carry relatively high interest rates. The results
16
in column (4) confirm that those with more severe ADHD symptoms are more likely to use
payday loans. A move from the bottom of the ADHD distribution to the top corresponds to

a 2.68 percentage point increase in the probability of having taken a loan from a payday or
store-front lender; this corresponds to a 12.68% increase in the probability of using payday
credit relative to the sample average (5.92%) for a one standard deviation increase in ADHD
symptom severity. These results suggest that those with more severe ADHD symptoms may
have less access to credit, and as a result, resort to high-interest payday loans. Further, a
100 percentile increase in ADHD symptom severity corresponds to an 11.68 percentage point
decrease in the probability of having enough emergency savings set aside to cover expenses
for three months (column (5)). This implies that a one standard deviation increase in ADHD
symptom severity is associated with a 9.44% decrease in the probability of having enough
emergency funds relative to the sample average (34.65%). These results suggest that those
with more severe ADHD symptoms are less financially prepared and have a lower capacity
to absorb potential financial shocks and unexpected expenses.
The positive coefficient on ADHD symptoms in column (6) of Table 3 indicates that those
with more severe symptoms are more likely to delay buying necessities. Based on marginal
effects shown in columns (3) to (7) of Table B2 in Appendix B, a one standard deviation
increase in ADHD symptom severity corresponds to a 2.77 percentage point (6.4%) decrease
in the probability of never having to delay buying necessities, a 0.53 percentage point (1.9%)
increase in the probability of rarely having to delay buying necessities, a 1.32 percentage
point (7.2%) increase in the probability of occasionally having to delay buying necessities,
a 0.56 percentage point (8.7%) increase in the probability of frequently having to delay
buying necessities, and a 0.36 percentage point (9.0%) increase in the probability of having
to delay buying necessities all the time (relative to the average frequency of responses in each
category). With respect to money shortages at month end, the marginal effects in columns
17
(10) to (13) of Table 3 indicate that a one standard deviation increase in ADHD symptom
percentile corresponds to a 1.23 percentage point (10.4%) decrease in the probability of

having more than enough money left over at the end of the month, a 2.38 percentage point
(5.5%) decrease in the probability of having some money left over, a 2.83 percentage point
(7.5%) increase in the probability of having just enough to make ends meet, and a 0.78
percentage point (10.6%) increase in the probability of not having enough to make ends
meet (relative to the average frequency of responses in each category).
In summary, individuals with more severe ADHD symptoms are less likely to have access
to credit or emergency funds to endure an unexpected financial shock. Further, those with
more severe symptoms are more likely to have to delay buying necessities and less likely
to have money left over at month end resulting in lower financial security and freedom of
choice.
3.3 Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms and Financial Out-

comes
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) includes three potential
presentations of ADHD: inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined (American Psy-
chiatric Association, 2013). The diagnostic criteria require a pattern of inattention and/or
hyperactivity-impulsivity each characterized by at least six of nine potential symptoms that
interfere with normal functioning. For example, the diagnostic criteria for the inattentive
presentation type include often being distracted, failure to pay close attention to detail,
and difficulty staying focused on tasks or activities, whereas those who present as having
predominantly hyperactive-impulsive symptoms show a pattern of excess movement when it
is inappropriate and having difficulty waiting to act or speak (American Psychiatric Associ-
ation, 2013).
Of the five behaviors mothers rate their children on in the NLSY79 CYA, “has difficulty
18
concentrating, cannot pay attention for long,” “is easily confused, seems to be in a fog,” and
“has a lot of difficulty getting [his/her] mind off certain thoughts” correspond to the inat-

tentive presentation of ADHD. Whether the child “is impulsive, or acts without thinking”
and “is restless or overly active, cannot sit still” correspond to the hyperactive-impulsive
presentation of ADHD. Though these symptoms are not as comprehensive as those listed
in the DSM-5, they may provide us with with some insight into the relationships between
the inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive subtypes and financial outcomes. Similar to the
measure of ADHD symptom percentile, we take the average of the sum of the inattentive
symptom scores across each survey wave from 1986 to 2008 and assign individuals a per-
centile rank based on their raw scores. We create a similar hyperactive-impulsive symptom
percentile score.
Panels A and B of Table 4 separately report the effects of the inattentive and hyperactive-
impulsive symptoms on financial outcomes, respectively. All regressions are as previously
described. We find that with the exception of having credit card debt, both the inattentive
and hyperactive-impulsive presentations of ADHD symptoms have similar effects on financial
outcomes, though the magnitudes of the estimates for the hyperactive-impulsive presentation
tend to be larger. The probability of having credit card debt is positively associated with
the hyperactive-impulsive presentation of ADHD, but is not significantly associated with the
inattentive presentation of ADHD. This is consistent with evidence that impulse buying has
been linked with credit card debt (Pirog and Roberts, 2007; Joireman, Kees, and Sprott,
2010).
In Panel C, we include both the inattentive symptom percentile and the hyperactive-
impulsive symptom percentile in the same regression to compare the relative explanatory
power of the two presentations.5 For each regression, we also report the p-values from Wald
5
The correlation between the inattentive percentile and the hyperactive-impulsive percentile is 0.6836.
Since this correlation is quite high, suggesting the potential for multicollinearity issues, we verify that all
variables have variance inflation factors below 4. Further, the conditional index number does not exceed 15.
19
tests of the equality of the inattentive percentile and hyperactive-impulsive percentile coef-
ficients; once both presentations are included in the same regression, the explanatory power

of hyperactive-impulsive symptoms remains, but the estimates for inattentive symptoms
become insignificant. The p-values from Wald tests indicate that the coefficient estimates
for hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are statistically different from the inattentive coeffi-
cient estimates at the 5% significance level for difficulty paying bills, late debt payment,
accounts in collection, credit card debt, and emergency funds. These results suggest that
hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are more strongly associated with these financial outcomes.
In Appendix C, we verify that these results cannot be explained by time preferences by con-
trolling for a revealed-preference-based measure of impatience (DellaVigna and Paserman,
2005; Kuhnen and Melzer, 2018).
3.4 Individual Self-Efficacy and Personality Traits
ADHD symptoms have been linked to certain aspects of personality such as Conscientious-
ness, Neuroticism, and Agreeableness (Nigg et al., 2002). These personality traits and other
non-cognitive abilities have in turn been shown to predict financial outcomes (Kuhnen and
Melzer, 2018; Parise and Peijnenburg, 2019). To verify that ADHD symptoms are associated
with financial outcomes independent of personality and non-cognitive abilities, we include
controls for each of the Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraver-
sion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) assessed using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory
(Gosling, Rentfrow, and Swann Jr, 2003) starting in 2006. We also include a control for
self-efficacy constructed using the Pearlin Mastery score measured in interviews from 1994
to 2008 (Kuhnen and Melzer, 2018).
In Table 5, we see that introversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism are associated with
difficulty paying bills and late bill payments, as well as the need to delay buying necessities
These tests suggest that there do not exist significant multicollinearity issues (Johnston, 1991).
20
and having money shortages at month end. However, no other personality traits show a
consistent relationship across financial outcomes. Consistent with findings in Kuhnen and

Melzer (2018), self-efficacy shows a strong relationship with financial outcomes. After includ-
ing these controls for personality and self-efficacy, the relationship between ADHD symptoms
and financial outcomes continues to remain economically and statistically significant.
3.5 Sibling Fixed Effects and Parental Support
Observational studies find that non-genetic factors, such as maternal obesity, diabetes (Camp-
bell and Eisenberg, 2007; Rodriguez et al., 2008; Buss et al., 2012), and smoking (Froehlich
et al., 2009), are associated with an increased likelihood of ADHD. In addition, it is possi-
ble that parental effects, such as how children are raised and the level of familial support
provided, particularly if children face adversity, may affect the relationship between ADHD
symptoms and financial outcomes. Further, ADHD has a strong heritability component
(Biederman et al., 1992; Faraone et al., 2005; Lesch et al., 2008; Sharp, McQuillin, and
Gurling, 2009; Volkow and Swanson, 2013). To test for the possibility that heterogeneity
in parental effects, including both genetic and non-genetic factors, explains the relationship
between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes, we include sibling fixed effects to account
for family-level unobservables.
We take advantage of the NLSY79 CYA data that allow us to identify individuals’ moth-
ers and thus sibling groups. Of the 5,788 individuals in the sample, 4,707 have at least one
sibling making up 1,841 unique sibling groups (with 1,841 unique mothers). To estimate
models with binary dependent variables, we use OLS with fixed effects and standard errors
clustered by sibling group. We estimate fixed effects models with ordinal dependent vari-
ables using the “blow-up and cluster” (BUC) approach developed by Baetschmann, Staub,
and Winkelmann (2015), which produces a consistent estimator for fixed effect ordered logit
models using the conditional maximum likelihood approach (Andersen, 1970; Chamberlain,
21
1980). Standard errors are clustered by sibling group. Since the magnitude of marginal
effects for ordered logit models with fixed effects estimated using the BUC estimator are

unknown (Baetschmann, Staub, and Winkelmann, 2015), we use odds ratios to compare
differences in magnitude estimated using the baseline ordered logit model in Tables 2 and 3
with those in Table 6 which include sibling fixed effects.
Table 6 shows that despite this conservative test, the relationship between ADHD symp-
toms and financial outcomes remains economically and statistically significant in most cases.
After including sibling fixed effects, the magnitude of the ADHD symptoms estimate on diffi-
culty paying bills increases slightly in magnitude from 0.5083 in Table 2 to 0.5145 in column
(1) of Table 6. The estimate of ADHD symptoms on late bill payment remains statistically
significant, but decreases from 6.99 percentage points (15.9% increase relative to the aver-
age) in Table 2 to 5.31 percentage points (12.1% increase relative to the average) in Table
6 for a 100 percentile (one standard deviation) increase in ADHD symptom score. The ef-
fect of ADHD symptoms on late debt payment is no longer statistically significant, and the
magnitude of the coefficient on ADHD symptoms decreases by more than half from 0.0617
in Table 2 to 0.0267 in Table 6 once we account for sibling fixed effects.
In column (4) of Table 6, the coefficient estimate of ADHD symptoms on the probability
of having accounts in collection becomes less significant, both statistically and economically;
the magnitude decreases from 10.54 percentage points (15.0% increase relative to the aver-
age) in Table 2 to 7.55 percentage points (10.8% increase relative to the average) in Table
6 given a 100 percentile (one standard deviation) increase in ADHD symptom score. After
including sibling fixed effects, the effect of ADHD symptoms on the probability of foreclo-
sure, repossession, or bankruptcy increases from a statistically insignificant 0.84 percentage
points (1.2% increase relative to the average) in Table 2 to a marginally significant 3.36
percentage points (4.8% increase relative to the average) in Table 6 for a 100 percentile (one
22
standard deviation) increase in ADHD symptom score. Given the low frequency of foreclo-
sures, repossessions, or bankruptcies in our sample (3.57%) and the inclusion of a sibling

group dummy variables, we interpret this result cautiously.
Accounting for heterogeneity in parental effects when testing the relationship between
ADHD symptoms and financial preparedness and financial freedom yields similar findings.
The effect of ADHD symptoms on leverage remains insignificant with a minor change from
0.0113 in Table 3 to -0.0204 in Table 6. The negative effect of ADHD symptoms on owning
a credit card increases in magnitude from -9.91 percentage points (6.57% decrease relative
to the average) to -12.73 percentage points (8.45% decrease relative to the average) for a 100
percentile (one standard deviation) increase in ADHD symptom score. For the subsample
of observations where an individual owns a credit card, the estimated effect of having credit
card debt increases slightly from 0.0391 to 0.0571, but remains insignificant after including
sibling fixed effects. Though the magnitude of the positive effect of ADHD symptoms on the
probability of having payday loans does not change, the effect of ADHD symptoms becomes
statistically insignificant after controlling for sibling fixed effects.
The effect of ADHD symptoms on having to delay buying necessities decreases slightly
in both magnitude and statistical significance once we account for heterogeneity between
sibling groups. While we cannot estimate marginal effects for the ordered logit model with
fixed effects using the BUC estimator (Baetschmann, Staub, and Winkelmann, 2015), we
can use an odds-ratio interpretation of the coefficients where a δ-unit change in Xi results in
a change of exp(δ β̂i ) in the odds of Y being greater than outcome category value k (versus
being less than or equal to outcome category k). In the baseline regression shown in column
(6) of Table 3, the odds ratio is 1.501 (= e0.4059 ) for the coefficient estimate on ADHD
symptom percentile; this suggests that for a 100 percentile increase in ADHD symptoms,
the odds of having to delay buying necessities all the time, frequently, occasionally, or rarely
23
(versus never having to delay buying necessities) are 50.1% higher. Similarly, the odds of
having to delay buying necessities all the time, frequently, or occasionally (versus rarely or

never having to delay buying necessities) are 50.1% higher and the odds of having to delay
buying necessities all the time or frequently (versus rarely, never, or occasionally having
to delay buying necessities) are 50.1% higher. Finally, the odds of having to delay buying
necessities all the time (versus rarely, never, occasionally, or frequently) are 50.1% higher.
This parallelism reflects the parallel regression assumption of ordered logit models tested and
discussed in Appendix A. After including sibling fixed effects in column (11) of Table 6, the
odds ratio for the coefficient estimate on ADHD symptoms decreases slightly in magnitude
to 1.446 (= e0.3686 ), but remains statistically significant. The interpretation of this odds
ratio is similar to that above.
The inclusion of sibling fixed effects increases the odds ratio for the estimate of ADHD
symptoms on month-end money shortages from 1.230 (= e0.2067 ) in column (7) of Table
3 to 1.561 (= e0.4452 ) in column (12) of Table 6. After controlling for sibling groups, the
odds of having some, just enough, or not enough money left over at the end of the month
(versus having more than enough money left over) are 13.3% higher (= e(0.28×0.4452) ) for a
one standard deviation increase in ADHD symptoms (0.28). Similarly, the odds of having
just enough or not enough to make ends meet (versus having some or more than enough
money left over) are 13.3% higher and the odds of not having enough to make ends meet
(versus having at least enough to make ends meet) are 13.3% higher.
Overall these results suggest that unobserved family-level heterogeneity does not entirely
explain the relationship between ADHD symptom severity and financial outcomes. However,
parental effects do appear to mitigate the effect of ADHD symptoms on late debt payments
and payday loans, which are no longer significant when controlling for sibling fixed effects. It
is possible that one’s family network can provide insurance via resource pooling, explaining
24
the variation between ADHD symptoms and payday loans and late debt payments.
3.6 Non-Linearities in the Effect of ADHD Symptoms on Financial Out-

comes
In this section, we explore potential non-linearities in the effect of ADHD symptoms on
financial outcomes. Is the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes
driven by those with the most severe ADHD symptoms, or is the effect continuously dis-
tributed across the range of ADHD symptoms? Clinically, ADHD is categorically diagnosed
according to the DSM-5 criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). However, there
is an ongoing debate around whether ADHD symptoms fall on a continuum with an ADHD
diagnosis representing an extreme on the continuum (dimensional approach), or whether
ADHD has a categorical structure with discrete classes delineated by non-arbitrary bound-
aries (categorical approach) (see Coghill and Sonuga-Barke, 2012 and McLennan, 2016 for
reviews).
Taxometric analyses to distinguish between categorical and dimensional models of latent
variables find no evidence for a discrete taxon (i.e., a non-arbitrary grouping that is qual-
itatively different from the normal range). Instead, studies find support for a dimensional
structure for ADHD (Haslam et al., 2006; Frazier, Youngstrom, and Naugle, 2007), as well as
for the inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity presentation subtypes (Marcus and Barry,
2011).
Quantitative genetic studies using twins support the notion that ADHD represents the
extreme end of a continuum, rather than discrete categories (Levy et al., 1997; Lubke et
al., 2009; Asherson and Trzaskowski, 2015). Gjone, Stevenson, and Sundet (1996) find
similar patterns of heritability across the full range of ADHD symptoms, where the degree
of heritability is similar for those with mild, moderate, or high levels of attention problems.
Larsson et al. (2012) examine heritability estimates for ADHD symptoms at extreme levels
25
as well as at levels just below the threshold for diagnosis, and find strong evidence that
the genetic risk for ADHD and its symptoms are continuously distributed throughout the

population.
Further, studies examining the effectiveness of medication for ADHD do not find evidence
for a threshold effect whereby medication has a positive effect above a certain symptom
threshold, but not below (McLennan, 2016). There is evidence of positive attentional effects
of stimulants for those who do not meet the criteria for an ADHD diagnosis; for example,
stimulants have been shown to enhance cognitive performance in the general population
(Sahakian and Morein-Zamir, 2007; Bagot and Kaminer, 2014).
Though clinically impractical for the purposes of diagnosis and treatment, these studies
suggest that ADHD symptoms should be modeled as a continuum and ADHD as the extreme
end of that continuum, rather than as a disorder with discrete determinants (Coghill and
Sonuga-Barke, 2012). As such, studies generally focus on the severity of ADHD symptoms
and not on a specific ADHD diagnosis (Currie and Stabile, 2006; Fletcher and Wolfe, 2008;
Currie, Stabile, and Jones, 2014).
Given the evidence for an ADHD symptom continuum, we examine whether the relation-
ship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes is consistent with this dimensional
conceptualization of ADHD. To do this, we test whether there exist non-linearities in the
effect of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes driven by the most severe cases of ADHD
or whether the effect persists across the range of ADHD symptoms. The items that comprise
our ADHD symptom score are less comprehensive than the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. How-
ever, to proxy for the approximate rates of ADHD diagnosis in the population (Visser et al.,
2014; Danielson et al., 2018; Thomas et al., 2015), we examine whether those with ADHD
symptom scores in the top 5% or the top 10% of our sample drive the relationship between
ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes. We note that this is merely an approximation
26
since a high ADHD symptom score itself does not necessarily meet the bar for an ADHD
diagnosis according to the DSM-5 criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).6

In Panel A of Table 7, we include two indicator variables; the indicator for “high” ADHD
equals one for ADHD symptom scores at or above the 95th percentile, and zero otherwise.
For comparison, we also include an indicator for “moderate” ADHD symptoms, which equals
one if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is above
the median and below the 95th percentile, and zero otherwise. The coefficient estimates for
the “high” ADHD symptom indicator variable tend to be insignificant with the exceptions
of having an account in collection, owning a credit card, having emergency funds, and
having money shortages at month end, whereas the “moderate” ADHD symptom indicator
is significant for all outcome variables related to ADHD symptoms in baseline regressions in
Tables 2 and 3. Further, Wald tests show that the coefficient estimates for the “high” ADHD
symptom indicator are not significantly larger in magnitude than those on the “moderate”
ADHD symptom indicator, except in the case of having an account in collection.
In Panel B, we lower the cutoff for the “high” ADHD symptom indicator to include
those with ADHD symptom scores at or above the 90th percentile. Our “moderate” ADHD
symptom indicator in this case equals one if an individual’s ADHD symptom score is above
median and below the 90th percentile, and zero otherwise. Coefficient estimates for “high”
ADHD symptoms are now significant, with the exception of late bill payment, and estimates
for the “moderate” ADHD symptom indicator remain significant in all cases found to be
significant in Panel A. However, p-values from Wald tests indicate that the estimates for
the “high” ADHD symptom indicator are not significantly larger in magnitude than the
coefficient estimates for the “moderate” ADHD symptom indicator, except in the cases of
6
In addition to a pattern of at least six of nine potential symptoms interfering with normal functioning,
the DSM-5 criteria also requires that alternative disorders be ruled out as the primary cause of symptoms
and that symptoms must be present prior to age 12 and exist in more than one setting (American Psychiatric
Association, 2013).
27
having accounts in collection and having emergency funds. These results suggest that the
relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes is generally not stronger for

those with the most severe symptoms relative to those with more moderate symptoms; thus
the relationship does not appear to be concentrated in those with the most severe ADHD
symptoms.
In Panel C of Table 7, we split the ADHD symptom distribution into terciles to verify
that the effect of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes exists throughout the ADHD dis-
tribution. “Top” (“middle”) ADHD tercile is an indicator that equals one if an individual’s
ADHD symptom percentile is in the top (middle) tercile, and zero otherwise. We find that
coefficient estimates for both the top and middle tercile indicators are significant for all
outcome variables related to ADHD symptoms in baseline regressions in Tables 2 and 3.
Further, the magnitudes of the top ADHD tercile estimates tend to be significantly larger
than the magnitudes of the middle tercile estimates, consistent with an interpretation that
higher ADHD symptom scores have a stronger relationship to financial outcomes. Thus,
the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes appears to exist across
the range of ADHD symptom scores, consistent with recent evidence that ADHD symptoms
occur on a continuum. In Appendix D, we verify that results are similar when considering
inattentive symptoms and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms separately.
3.7 ADHD, Treatment, and Financial Outcomes
ADHD symptoms are often managed with pharmaceutical treatments, which have a pos-
itive effect for the majority of children, adolescents, and adults with ADHD (Rosa-Neto
et al., 2005; Faraone and Glatt, 2010; Boland et al., 2020; Volkow et al., 2012). While
pharmaceutical treatments are not a “cure” for ADHD, they do help individuals manage
symptoms. In addition to pharmaceutical treatments, behavioral therapies focus on devel-
oping coping strategies for the challenges posed by ADHD and are generally effective for
28
those with moderate ADHD. Behavioral therapies range from training for parents with chil-
dren with ADHD to social skills training and cognitive behavioral therapy for older students

and adults with ADHD (Young and Amarasinghe, 2010). In a recent study estimating the
national prevalence of ADHD diagnosis and treatment, Danielson et al. (2018) find that
9.4% of U.S. children aged 2 to 17 have ever been diagnosed with ADHD and that 8.4% of
children currently have ADHD. Among children and adolescents who currently have ADHD,
62.0% took prescription stimulants in the past year, 46.7% received behavioral treatment in
the past year, and 23.0% received neither treatment (Danielson et al., 2018).
We take advantage of a NLSY79 CYA question that asks mothers with children between
the ages of 4 and 14 whether the child takes medication to control activity level or behavior;
this allows us to examine whether pharmaceutical treatments may mitigate the negative
effect of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes. We construct three measures of medication
treatment for behavioral issues both during childhood and in young adulthood; Panel A of
Table 1 shows summary statistics for these measures.
First, the childhood measure of treatment is based on the following question posed to
mothers with children between the ages of 4 and 14: “Does [Child’s First Name] regularly
take any medicines or prescription drugs to help control [his/her] activity level or behav-
ior?” We take the average response to this “yes” (1) or “no” (0) question across interviews
from 1994 to 2008 as our measure of childhood treatment. The average level of childhood
treatment received is 1.97% and the correlation between ADHD symptom percentile and
childhood treatment is 0.251 (significant at the 1% level). In Figure 1, the scatter plot
shows a positive relationship between childhood treatment and ADHD symptom percentile.
The shaded area in the figure shows a 95% confidence interval around the mean.
Second, the young adulthood measure of medication treatment is based on a similar
question posed to those 15 years or older in the young adult questionnaire: “Do you regularly
29
take any medicine or prescription drugs to help control your activity level or behavior?” We
take the average response to this “yes” (1) or “no” (0) question across available survey

waves as our measure of young adulthood treatment. The average level of young adulthood
treatment received by individuals in our sample is 2.83%. The correlation between ADHD
symptom percentile and young adulthood treatment is 0.114 (significant at the 1% level).
The scatter plot in Figure 2 shows a relationship that is not obviously positive between
young adulthood treatment and childhood ADHD symptoms, however, the shaded area,
which indicates a 95% confidence interval around the mean, does appear to increase for high
ADHD symptom percentiles.
The higher correlation between ADHD symptoms and childhood treatment compared
with the correlation between ADHD symptoms and young adulthood treatment is not sur-
prising given rates of medication discontinuation or non-adherence that range from 13.2% to
64% in clinical trial populations (McCarthy et al., 2009; Adler and Nierenberg, 2010). Stud-
ies show that those who are between 15 and 21 years old are the most likely to discontinue
treatment (Zetterqvist et al., 2013). In our sample, the correlation between young adulthood
treatment and childhood treatment is 0.268 (significant at the 1% level); the scatter plot in
Figure 4 confirms the positive relationship between these two variables, particularly for high
levels of average childhood treatment.
Lastly, we include a time-varying measure of current treatment based on the previous
question regarding medication posed to young adults in 2010, 2012, and 2014. This variable
is measured concurrently with the financial outcome variables of interest and equals one in
years an individual answers “yes” to regularly taking medication to control activity level or
behavior and equals zero in years an individual answers “no.” The average of the current
treatment variable is 5.07% in our sample and the correlation between childhood ADHD
symptom percentile and current treatment is 0.037 (significant at the 1% level). This lower
30
correlation is reflected in the scatter plot in Figure 3 and is not surprising given current
treatment is the most temporally distant from our measure of childhood ADHD symptoms.7

We note two caveats with these measures of medication treatment. First, it is possible
that those who indicate that they or their children are being treated with medication to
control activity level or behavior are not being treated for ADHD in particular, but for
other disorders such as substance use, anxiety, depression, and learning disabilities that
often coexist or share symptoms with ADHD (Zametkin and Ernst, 1999; Elia, Ambrosini,
and Berrettini, 2008; Cuffe et al., 2015). Studies show that two-thirds of U.S. children
with ADHD have coexisting or comorbid conditions (Elia, Ambrosini, and Berrettini, 2008;
Larson et al., 2011). Second, our measure of treatment likely relies only on diagnosed cases
of behavioral issues based on the subset of children who are able to seek medical care and
meet the threshold for diagnosis and treatment, which may bias our findings towards those
with medical coverage (Frank and Gertler, 1991).
In each panel of Table 8, we include ADHD symptoms, one of the three treatment vari-
ables, and their interaction in each regression. Surprisingly, in Panel A, the coefficient
estimate for the childhood treatment variable is significantly positive for difficulty paying
bills and late bill payment; this indicates that receiving more consistent treatment during
childhood is associated with both more difficulty paying bills and a higher probability of
late bill payment. This counterintuitive finding may be a result of the treatment variable
capturing the effects of the comorbidities mentioned above on financial outcomes. In Ap-
pendix F, we examine whether anxiety and depression play a role in explaining the positive
relationship between treatment and financial outcomes, but generally do not find evidence
for this.
7
Since those with more severe ADHD symptoms are likely to have higher and more consistent rates of
treatment, it is possible that the absence of non-linearities observed in Table 7 is the result of individuals
with the most severe symptoms receiving more consistent treatment. In Appendix E, we verify that the
results in Section 3.6 remain after controlling for ADHD treatment.
31
In Panel A of Table 8, the estimate for the interaction between ADHD symptoms and
childhood treatment is significantly negative for late bill payment; this indicates that for two

people with the same ADHD symptom score, the one who received more consistent treatment
in childhood is less likely to have a late bill payment. The interaction between ADHD
symptoms and childhood treatment is also significantly negative for difficulty paying bills,
however, the interaction effects for non-linear, ordered logit models are less straightforward
to interpret (Ai and Norton, 2003; Hoetker, 2007). As Ai and Norton (2003) succinctly note,
“the magnitude of the interaction effect in non-linear models does not equal the marginal
effect of the interaction term [and] can be of opposite sign.” For non-linear models, we cannot
meaningfully discuss the separate effect of treatment holding ADHD symptoms constant
because at each level of ADHD symptom severity, there is a different effect of treatment.
Since both ADHD symptom percentile and childhood treatment are continuous variables,
instead of relying on one coefficient to summarize the interaction effect, we show graphs of
the conditional marginal effects of childhood treatment on ordinal outcomes over the range
of ADHD symptoms for a more complete description of the joint effect of ADHD symptoms
and treatment on financial outcomes in Appendix G.
In Figure G1, we show conditional marginal effects of childhood treatment on the prob-
ability of each of the five outcome categories for having difficulty paying bills over the range
of ADHD symptoms. Since childhood treatment is a continuous variable, each figure shows
marginal effects estimated at four different levels of childhood treatment: zero (the minimum
value), the mean, two standard deviations above the mean, and one (the maximum value).
Marginal effects are estimated at the mean for all other variables and a 95% confidence
interval is shown for marginal effects estimated at each treatment level. In terms of the
interaction effect, the four lines representing the four levels of childhood treatment do not
appear significantly different from each other (since their confidence intervals overlap) at
32
any point in the distribution of ADHD symptoms in any of five graphs in Figure G1 which
each represent an outcome category. One exception is Figure G1b, which shows a significant

interaction effect between childhood treatment and ADHD symptoms for the probability of
having a little difficulty paying bills, since the lines indicating various levels of childhood
treatment are significantly different from each other, for ADHD symptom scores below the
20th percentile. Overall, childhood treatment does not seem to moderate the effect of ADHD
symptoms on difficulty paying bills, despite the significant coefficient on the interaction term
in column (1) in Panel A of Table 8.
There are no significant relationships between childhood treatment and other financial
outcomes; Figures G2 and G3 confirm this graphically for having to delay buying necessities
and money shortages at month end. One potential reason for this may be the higher rates of
medication discontinuation among those who are 15 to 21 years old (Zetterqvist et al., 2013).
Discontinuation of medication between the ages of 15 and 21 would weaken the relationship
between childhood treatment, measured between the ages of 4 and 14, and financial outcomes
in adulthood, measured when the individual is at least 21 years old.
The results in Panel B of Table 8 show that young adulthood treatment is significantly
associated with all financial outcomes related to ADHD symptoms in baseline regressions.
The magnitude of the estimates for young adulthood treatment tend to be larger than the
magnitude of the estimates for ADHD symptoms, potentially as a result of capturing co-
morbidities and other omitted variables, as described above. The coefficient estimates for
the interaction between ADHD symptom percentile and young adulthood treatment is, in
general, significantly negative and similar in magnitude to the estimates for young adult-
hood treatment; this indicates that more consistent levels of treatment in young adulthood
mitigate the negative relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes.
For ordinal variables, Figure G4 confirms that higher levels of treatment in young adult-
33
hood (e.g., at least two standard deviations above the mean, represented by the green and
orange lines) are associated with a higher probability of having no difficulty (Figure G4a)

and a lower probability of having a little (Figure G4b) or some difficulty (Figure G4c) paying
bills, relative to lower levels of treatment, for ADHD symptoms approximately below the 60th
percentile. Figure G5 shows that those who receive very high levels of average treatment in
young adulthood (e.g., the orange line representing average young adulthood treatment lev-
els of one) have a higher probability of never having to delay buying necessities (Figure G5a)
and a lower probability of rarely (Figure G5b) or occasionally (Figure G5c) having to delay
buying necessities, relative to those with lower levels of treatment, for those with ADHD
symptoms below the mean. In Figure G6, those who receive very high levels of treatment
(e.g., the orange line representing average young adulthood treatment levels of one) have a
higher probability of having more than enough money left over at month end (Figure G6a),
relative to those with lower levels of treatment, for ADHD symptoms approximately below
the 60th percentile. Across all financial outcomes, higher average levels of treatment during
young adulthood tend to mitigate the negative effects of ADHD symptoms on financial out-
comes. For ordinal dependent variables, average levels of young adulthood treatment must
be quite consistent and at least two standard deviations above the mean (i.e., the green and
orange lines) to have a significant moderating effect for lower levels of ADHD symptoms;
young adulthood treatment does not seem to moderate the effect of ADHD symptoms on
when symptoms are severe.
In Panel C, we examine whether a time-varying measure of current treatment, measured
concurrently with financial outcomes, influences these financial outcomes. Consistent with
previous results, we find that currently receiving treatment is positively associated with
financial distress including more difficulty paying bills, late bill and late debt payment, as
well as having accounts in collection and foreclosure. Current treatment is also positively
34
related to having credit card debt, payday loans, having no emergency funds, having to delay
buying necessities, as well as having money shortages at month end. The interaction term

between current treatment and ADHD symptom percentile is generally insignificant, with
the exceptions of late bill payment and having credit card debt. Figures G7 through G9
show the conditional marginal effect of current treatment, an indicator variable, on difficulty
paying bills, delay buying necessities, and money shortages at month end, respectively. The
two lines in each figure show the marginal effects of not currently receiving treatment (blue
line) relative to the marginal effects of currently receiving treatment (maroon line) on an
outcome category over the range of ADHD symptoms. Overall, conditional marginal effect
estimates for those who currently receive treatment relative to those who do not currently
receive treatment do not appear to be significantly different from each other anywhere in
the distribution of ADHD symptoms.
In summary, the mitigating effects of average treatment in young adulthood on the
negative effect of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes tend to be stronger than that of
average treatment in childhood. Further, more consistent treatment in young adulthood is
more likely to mitigate the negative effects of ADHD on financial outcomes than currently
receiving treatment in any one year, consistent with evidence that continued medication use
tends to improve various outcomes (Barbaresi et al., 2007; Wilens et al., 2008; Biederman
et al., 2010; Lichtenstein et al., 2012; Chang et al., 2014).
4. Conclusion
We examine a novel determinant of financial outcomes and provide evidence that the severity
of ADHD symptoms in childhood is associated with an increased probability of financial
distress in adulthood. Given the high incidence of ADHD in children (Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 2013; Danielson et al., 2018), it is critical to identify its role in
35
shaping financial outcomes. A Federal Reserve Board (2018) survey finds that disparities in
economic well-being continue to exist and that four in 10 adults do not have enough savings
to cover an unexpected expense of $400, and over 20% of adults are unable to fully pay

their bills in the current month. Our findings suggest that those with more severe ADHD
symptoms during childhood are more likely to face adverse financial outcomes in adulthood.
While we have made a preliminary attempt to gauge the efficacy of medication for mit-
igating the negative effect of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes, sharper tools may
be necessary to more precisely estimate the magnitude of the effects. Further, behavioral
therapies have been shown to be effective for managing symptoms and impairments from
ADHD resulting in improved functioning (Mongia and Hechtman, 2012). Among children
with ADHD, approximately 47% received behavioral treatment in the past year (Danielson
et al., 2018). Such interventions may also be beneficial for improving the financial outcomes
of those with ADHD symptoms and present an avenue for future research that may have im-
plications for targeted policy interventions that can mitigate the effects of ADHD symptoms
on financial health and well-being.
36
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45
Figure 1: Distribution of Childhood Figure 2: Distribution of Young Adulthood
Treatment by ADHD with 95% CI Treatment by ADHD with 95% CI
Figure 3: Current Treatment by ADHD Figure 4: Distribution of Young Adulthood by

with 95% CI Childhood Treatment with 95% CI
Each figure above shows scatter plots of the relationship between two variables. The shaded area
in each figure shows a 95% confidence interval around the mean. Childhood treatment is the
average response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Does [Child’s First Name] regularly
take any medicines or prescription drugs to help control [his/her] activity level or behavior?”
answered by mothers with children between the ages of 4 and 14. Young adulthood treatment
is the average response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Do you regularly take any
medicine or prescription drugs to help control your activity level or behavior?” asked to young
adults 15 years or older. Current treatment equals one in years the individual answers “yes”
to the previous question regarding young adulthood treatment, and zero in years the individual
answers “no;” this variable is measured concurrently with financial outcomes. Figure 1 shows
a scatter plot of the relationship between ADHD symptom percentile and childhood treatment.
Figure 2 shows a scatter plot of the relationship between ADHD symptom percentile and young
adulthood treatment. Figure 3 shows a scatter plot of the relationship between ADHD symptom
percentile and current treatment. Figure 4 shows a scatter plot of the relationship between
childhood treatment and young adulthood treatment.
46
Table 1: Summary Statistics
This table reports summary statistics for key characteristics for the NLSY 1979 Children and Young
Adult sample. The sample contains observations for 5,788 unique individuals who are at least 21
years of age when surveyed in 2010, 2012, and 2014. ADHD symptoms, risk tolerance, and cognitive
ability in Panel A are measured using data in 2008 and prior. All other demographic variables

in Panel A are measured in the 2010, 2012, and 2014 survey waves. Panel B contains financial
characteristics for the full sample in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Leverage (debts divided by assets)
is only available for 7,681 observations for which an individual has non-zero assets. Emergency
savings is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. Panel C contains additional financial
characteristics in 2010, 2012, and 2014 for the subsample of individuals with debt outstanding in
the current or prior survey wave.
Mean Std. Dev. Min Max N

Panel A: Demographic Characteristics
Number of years in sample 2.02 0.75 1 3 5,788
ADHD symptoms (raw score) 7.13 1.66 5 14.8 11,674
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.50 0.28 0.04 0.99 11,674
Inattentive symptoms (raw score) 4.05 0.98 3 8.8 11,674
Inattentive symptoms (percentile) 0.51 0.27 0.1 0.99 11,674
Impulsive/Hyperactive symptoms (raw score) 3.08 0.82 2 6 11,674
Impulsive/Hyperactive symptoms (percentile) 0.50 0.28 0.07 0.99 11,674
Risk tolerance (raw score) 8.01 1.35 3 12 11,674
Risk tolerance (percentile) 0.50 0.29 0 0.99 11,674
Cognitive ability (raw score) 47.19 21.59 0.75 99 11,674
Cognitive ability (percentile) 0.47 0.29 0 0.99 11,674
Male 47.39% 49.93% 0 1 11,674
Age 27.03 4.20 21 42 11,674
Latino 21.65% 41.19% 0 1 11,674
Black 34.89% 47.66% 0 1 11,674
Non-latino, non-black 43.46% 49.57% 0 1 11,674
Bachelor’s degree 15.92% 36.58% 0 1 11,674
High school 30.94% 46.23% 0 1 11,674
Never married 68.82% 46.33% 0 1 11,674
Married 23.69% 42.52% 0 1 11,674
Separated 2.79% 16.48% 0 1 11,674
Divorced 4.51% 20.76% 0 1 11,674
Widowed 0.19% 4.34% 0 1 11,674
Childhood treatment 1.97% 8.54% 0 1 11,674
Young adulthood (YA) treatment 2.83% 8.16% 0 0.8 11,674
Current treatment 5.07% 21.94% 0 1 11,674
Panel B: Financial Characteristics
Income $32,857 $35,754 $0 $321,483 11,674
Assets $39,399 $100,037 $0 $3,325,000 11,674
Debts $25,996 $65,757 $0 $1,310,000 11,674
Net worth $13,403 $63,851 -$300,000 $3,325,000 11,674
Leverage 0.54 0.63 0 3.5 7,681
Continued on next page
47
Table 1 Summary Statistics – Continued from previous page
Has debt 58.77% 49.23% 0 1 11,674

Owns home 19.45% 39.59% 0 1 11,674
Has mortgage debt 16.34% 36.97% 0 1 11,674

Owns credit card 42.16% 49.38% 0 1 11,674
Has credit card debt 29.76% 45.72% 0 1 11,674
Owns vehicle 67.04% 47.01% 0 1 11,674
Has vehicle debt 32.69% 46.91% 0 1 11,674
Difficulty paying bills 2.07 1.10 1 5 11,674
No difficulty at all (1) 38.51% 4,496
A little difficulty (2) 30.62% 3,574
Some difficulty (3) 20.12% 2,349
Quite a bit of difficulty (4) 6.99% 816
A great deal of difficulty (5) 3.76% 439
Late bill 12.30% 32.85% 0 1 11,674
Payday loan 5.92% 23.60% 0 1 11,674
Emergency funds 34.65% 47.59% 0 1 8,115
Delay buying necessity 2.00 1.11 1 5 11,674
Never (1) 43.23% 5,047
Rarely (2) 27.95% 3,263
Occasionally (3) 18.34% 2,141
Frequently (4) 6.43% 751
All the time (5) 4.04% 472
Money shortages at month end 2.41 0.79 1 4 11,674
More than enough money left over (1) 11.84% 1,382
Some money left over (2) 43.10% 5,032
Just enough to make ends meet (3) 37.66% 4,396
Not enough to make ends meet (4) 7.40% 864
Panel C: Financial Characteristics of Subsample with Debt Outstanding
Late debt 15.73% 36.41% 0 1 6,861
Account(s) in collection 19.65% 39.74% 0 1 6,861
Foreclosure 0.76% 8.67% 0 1 6,861
Repossession 1.98% 13.94% 0 1 6,861
Bankruptcy 1.25% 11.13% 0 1 6,861
Foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy 3.57% 18.56% 0 1 6,861
48
Table 2: ADHD Symptoms and Financial Distress
This table reports the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial distress. The dependent variables indicate whether in the
past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty);
has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment, or a debt payment; had an account in collection; or experienced foreclosure,
repossession, or bankruptcy. Models where difficulty paying bills is the dependent variable are estimated using ordered logit. All
other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with difficulty paying bills and late bill payments
as dependent variables are estimated using the full sample. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure,
repossession, or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. ADHD
symptoms is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. Coefficient estimates
and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%,
5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Difficulty Difficulty Late bill Late bill Late debt Late debt Account(s) Account(s) Foreclosure, Foreclosure,
paying bills paying bills payment payment payment payment in collection in collection repossession, repossession,
or bankruptcy or bankruptcy
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.7934*** 0.5083*** 0.1130*** 0.0699*** 0.0898*** 0.0617*** 0.1258*** 0.1054*** 0.0271*** 0.0084
49
(10.84) (6.31) (9.84) (5.61) (5.05) (3.29) (6.20) (4.86) (3.21) (0.88)
Male -0.4744*** -0.0529*** -0.0559*** -0.0635*** -0.0079
(-10.84) (-7.74) (-5.75) (-5.67) (-1.50)
College -0.5463*** -0.0434*** -0.0571*** -0.0840*** -0.0133***
(-9.35) (-6.00) (-5.27) (-7.01) (-2.62)
High school -0.1733*** -0.0221*** -0.0215** -0.0267*** -0.0134***
(-4.66) (-3.49) (-2.37) (-2.73) (-3.07)
Income (in thousands) -0.0128*** -0.0010*** -0.0009*** -0.0010*** -0.0002***
(-15.90) (-10.69) (-7.17) (-7.70) (-3.35)
Net worth (in thousands) -0.0031*** -0.0001*** -0.0003*** -0.0003*** 0.0000
(-3.88) (-3.25) (-4.33) (-3.43) (0.25)
Cognitive ability (percentile) 0.0415 -0.0145 0.0048 0.0523** -0.0238**
(0.47) (-1.05) (0.23) (2.21) (-2.17)
Risk tolerance (percentile) 0.3013*** 0.0402*** 0.0405** 0.0249 0.0076
(3.75) (3.20) (2.20) (1.20) (0.84)
Race FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes
Age FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes
Marital Status FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 6861 6861 6861
R-squared and Pseudo R-squared 0.005 0.042 0.009 0.050 0.005 0.053 0.007 0.050 0.002 0.024

Table 3: ADHD Symptoms and Financial Preparedness and Freedom
This table reports the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial preparedness and
freedom. The dependent variables indicate an individual’s leverage (debt/assets); whether they

own a credit card; have credit card debt; have taken out a payday loan in the past 12 months; have
emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the
time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether the
individual had money shortages at the end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money
left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables are estimated
using ordered logit. All other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS.
All models are estimated using the full sample, except where credit card debt is the dependent
variable, which is estimated using the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. Leverage
(debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of observations for which assets are non-zero. The
emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. ADHD symptoms
is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores, ranging from 0
to 1. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the
individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels,
respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

Leverage Owns credit Has credit Payday Emergency Delay Money
card card debt loan funds buying shortages at
necessity month end
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.0113 -0.0991*** 0.0391 0.0268*** -0.1168*** 0.4059*** 0.2067***
(0.35) (-5.16) (1.40) (2.74) (-5.42) (5.05) (6.63)
Male -0.0712*** -0.0275*** -0.1013*** -0.0196*** 0.0685*** -0.3617*** -0.2293***
(-4.24) (-2.74) (-6.65) (-3.85) (5.85) (-8.18) (-13.76)
College -0.0155 0.1633*** -0.1428*** -0.0290*** 0.1434*** -0.4611*** -0.1705***
(-0.76) (12.09) (-8.98) (-5.18) (9.14) (-7.83) (-7.99)
High school 0.0061 0.0417*** -0.0101 0.0013 0.0300*** -0.1110*** -0.0355**
(0.42) (4.72) (-0.85) (0.27) (3.14) (-2.97) (-2.45)
Income (in thousands) 0.0030*** 0.0037*** 0.0004* -0.0001 0.0030*** -0.0126*** -0.0061***
(10.48) (21.96) (1.69) (-1.11) (15.86) (-15.35) (-21.56)
Net worth (in thousands) -0.0017*** 0.0000 -0.0005*** -0.0001*** 0.0004*** -0.0009 -0.0007***
(-4.06) (0.08) (-4.50) (-3.46) (2.81) (-1.18) (-3.93)
Cognitive ability (percentile) 0.1278*** 0.2839*** -0.0160 0.0131 -0.0729*** -0.3144*** -0.1945***
(3.67) (13.35) (-0.53) (1.17) (-2.97) (-3.51) (-5.64)
Risk tolerance (percentile) -0.0259 -0.0338* 0.0596** 0.0051 -0.0269 0.1924** 0.0311
(-0.84) (-1.84) (2.19) (0.55) (-1.25) (2.36) (1.00)
Race FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Age FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Marital Status FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Observations 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
R-squared and Pseudo R-squared 0.096 0.241 0.086 0.023 0.103 0.043 0.08
50
Table 4: Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms and Financial Outcomes
This table reports the relationships between inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms and financial outcomes. The dependent variables indicate whether
in the past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60
days late on a bill payment, or a debt payment; had an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned
a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a payday loan; has emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the
time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether the individual had money shortages at the end of the month, on a
scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables are estimated using ordered logit. All
other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure, repossession, or
bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent
variable, is estimated using the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets)
is only available for the subsample of observations for which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey
waves. Panel A shows results for the inattentive symptoms of ADHD based on the severity of the following behaviors: “has difficulty concentrating, cannot pay
attention for long,” “is easily confused, seems to be in a fog,” and “has a lot of difficulty getting [his/her] mind off certain thoughts.” Inattentive (percentile)
is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of inattentive symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. Panel B shows results for the hyperactive-impulsive
symptoms of ADHD based on the severity of the following behaviors: “is impulsive, or acts without thinking” and “is restless or overly active, cannot sit still.”
Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of hyperactive-impulsive symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. Panel C
shows both the Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive variables in the same regression, as well as the p-values from Wald tests of the equality of coefficients for
these two variables. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and
marital status in all models. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate
significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
Difficulty Late bill Late debt Account(s) Foreclosure, Leverage Owns credit Has credit Payday Emergency Delay Money
paying bills payment payment in collection repossession, card card debt loan funds buying shortages at
51
or bankruptcy necessity month end
Panel A: Inattentive Symptoms
Inattentive (percentile) 0.3777*** 0.0582*** 0.0371* 0.0789*** 0.0022 0.0057 -0.0876*** 0.0099 0.0230** -0.0825*** 0.3334*** 0.4551***
(4.59) (4.45) (1.95) (3.59) (0.23) (0.17) (-4.45) (0.34) (2.29) (-3.74) (4.04) (5.47)
Control Variables and Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
R-squared and Pseudo R-squared 0.041 0.049 0.051 0.048 0.024 0.096 0.240 0.086 0.023 0.101 0.043 0.079
Panel B: Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms
Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) 0.5213*** 0.0615*** 0.0707*** 0.1165*** 0.0131 0.0163 -0.0946*** 0.0571** 0.0269*** -0.1275*** 0.3846*** 0.4926***
(6.50) (4.95) (3.75) (5.44) (1.40) (0.51) (-5.03) (2.09) (2.85) (-6.02) (4.80) (5.96)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel C: Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms
Inattentive (percentile) 0.0528 0.0292 -0.0164 0.0030 -0.0109 -0.0083 -0.0416 -0.0458 0.0085 0.0041 0.1291 0.2170**
(0.48) (1.60) (-0.64) (0.11) (-0.90) (-0.20) (-1.62) (-1.26) (0.69) (0.14) (1.16) (1.98)
Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) 0.4885*** 0.0436** 0.0808*** 0.1147*** 0.0198* 0.0214 -0.0690*** 0.0846** 0.0217* -0.1300*** 0.3042*** 0.3586***
(4.57) (2.51) (3.20) (4.24) (1.68) (0.52) (-2.80) (2.43) (1.86) (-4.66) (2.81) (3.30)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.0272 0.6595 0.0359 0.0229 0.1530 0.6926 0.5494 0.0424 0.5406 0.0095 0.3826 0.4745

Table 5: Individual Self-Efficacy and Personality Traits
This table reports the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes when controlling for personality traits and self-
efficacy. The dependent variables indicate whether in the past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale
of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment, or a debt payment; had an
account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card; had credit card
debt; took out a payday loan; has emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the time),
that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether the individual had money shortages at the end of
the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables
are estimated using ordered logit. All other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt
payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding
in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is estimated using the subsample
that has a credit card. All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample
of observations for which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves.
ADHD symptoms is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. Self-efficacy is an
individual’s percentile rank, ranging from 0 to 1, measured using the Pearlin Mastery score. Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeableness, and Neuroticism are an individual’s percentile rank, ranging from 0 to 1, in the distribution of each of these Big Five
personality traits. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed
effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered
52
at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.3985*** 0.0592*** 0.0499*** 0.0928*** 0.0058 0.0207 -0.0856*** 0.0459* 0.0213** -0.1040*** 0.2649*** 0.4076***
(4.85) (4.73) (2.65) (4.27) (0.60) (0.65) (-4.39) (1.65) (2.13) (-4.78) (3.24) (4.88)
Self-efficacy (percentile) -0.6175*** -0.0354*** -0.0739*** -0.0702*** -0.0286*** 0.0552* 0.0452** 0.0585** -0.0235** 0.0456** -0.8522*** -0.7072***
(-7.47) (-2.78) (-3.88) (-3.36) (-2.81) (1.72) (2.39) (2.00) (-2.43) (2.09) (-10.13) (-8.54)
Openness (percentile) 0.1126 0.0085 0.0276 0.0442** 0.0066 -0.0061 -0.0530*** 0.0306 0.0296*** -0.0584*** 0.2709*** 0.1558*
(1.42) (0.66) (1.45) (2.04) (0.67) (-0.21) (-2.96) (1.06) (3.12) (-2.77) (3.37) (1.96)
Conscientiousness (percentile) -0.0643 -0.0241* -0.0248 0.0078 0.0088 0.0138 0.0304* -0.0630** -0.0113 0.0673*** -0.1262 0.0094
(-0.81) (-1.89) (-1.31) (0.37) (0.96) (0.44) (1.67) (-2.22) (-1.16) (3.21) (-1.55) (0.12)
Extraversion (percentile) -0.2517*** -0.0033 0.0188 0.0012 0.0007 -0.0424 -0.0055 -0.0442* 0.0140 0.0471** -0.2492*** -0.2937***
(-3.27) (-0.27) (1.04) (0.06) (0.08) (-1.36) (-0.31) (-1.66) (1.47) (2.28) (-3.16) (-3.72)
Agreeableness (percentile) 0.2316*** 0.0274** 0.0142 0.0075 -0.0032 -0.0105 -0.0145 -0.0396 0.0011 -0.0220 0.2527*** 0.1945**
(2.97) (2.17) (0.76) (0.35) (-0.36) (-0.34) (-0.82) (-1.42) (0.12) (-1.05) (3.20) (2.42)
Neuroticism (percentile) 0.3228*** 0.0467*** 0.0245 0.0603*** -0.0004 -0.0114 -0.0570*** -0.0372 0.0149 -0.0267 0.3162*** 0.3836***
(4.04) (3.54) (1.24) (2.75) (-0.04) (-0.37) (-3.15) (-1.28) (1.53) (-1.27) (3.90) (4.72)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674

Table 6: Sibling Fixed Effects
This table reports the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes when controlling for sibling fixed effects. Of the 5,788
individuals in the sample, 4,707 have at least one sibling. There are 1,841 unique sibling groups (with 1,841 unique mothers) for these
4,707 individuals with siblings. The dependent variables indicate whether in the past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying
their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment, or a debt
payment; had an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card;
had credit card debt; took out a payday loan; has emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5
(all the time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether the individual had money shortages at
the end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Fixed effect models with ordinal
dependent variables are estimated using the BUC estimator (Baetschmann, Staub, and Winkelmann, 2015). All other models with binary
dependent variables are estimated using OLS with fixed effects. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure,
repossession, or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7),
where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is estimated using the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. All other models
are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of observations for which assets are non-zero.
The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. ADHD symptoms is an individual’s percentile rank
in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive
ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, marital status, as well as for each sibling group in all models. Coefficient
estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered by sibling group. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%,
5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
53
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.5145*** 0.0531** 0.0267 0.0755* 0.0336* -0.0204 -0.1273*** 0.0571 0.0269 -0.0712* 0.3686** 0.4452***
(3.14) (2.39) (0.68) (1.85) (1.83) (-0.36) (-4.42) (1.06) (1.55) (-1.83) (2.22) (2.66)
Male -0.5437*** -0.0488*** -0.0443*** -0.0474*** -0.0121 -0.0620** -0.0092 -0.0265 -0.0205*** 0.0499*** -0.3732*** -0.6969***
(-7.98) (-4.98) (-2.79) (-2.74) (-1.38) (-2.55) (-0.77) (-1.11) (-2.86) (3.02) (-5.29) (-9.69)
College -0.2481*** -0.0066 -0.0209 -0.0013 0.0050 -0.0251 0.0575*** -0.0311 -0.0045 0.0521** -0.2064** -0.2317***
(-2.90) (-0.71) (-1.39) (-0.08) (0.69) (-0.94) (3.74) (-1.56) (-0.67) (2.17) (-2.34) (-2.73)
High school -0.1867*** -0.0201*** -0.0254** -0.0262** -0.0114** -0.0113 0.0328*** 0.0324** 0.0006 0.0259** -0.0839* -0.0613
(-3.80) (-2.63) (-2.14) (-2.08) (-2.03) (-0.61) (3.28) (2.10) (0.11) (2.17) (-1.67) (-1.25)
Income (in thousands) -0.0133*** -0.0008*** -0.0006*** -0.0007*** -0.0001 0.0022*** 0.0028*** 0.0001 -0.0001 0.0026*** -0.0116*** -0.0161***
(-11.61) (-6.77) (-3.80) (-3.46) (-1.41) (6.74) (15.45) (0.49) (-0.69) (10.20) (-10.26) (-14.24)
Net worth (in thousands) -0.0023*** -0.0000 -0.0001* -0.0001 0.0001 -0.0014*** 0.0000 -0.0002* -0.0000* 0.0001 -0.0007 -0.0017**
(-3.29) (-1.32) (-1.75) (-1.63) (1.32) (-3.03) (0.53) (-1.80) (-1.67) (0.71) (-1.00) (-2.33)
Cognitive ability (percentile) 0.0896 0.0147 0.0385 0.1075** -0.0310 0.1091 0.1499*** 0.2249*** 0.0375* -0.1314*** -0.2451 -0.2558
(0.45) (0.55) (0.83) (2.17) (-1.41) (1.62) (4.27) (3.49) (1.89) (-2.85) (-1.25) (-1.35)
Risk tolerance (percentile) 0.2395* 0.0244 0.0059 0.0098 0.0143 -0.1489*** -0.0451* -0.0467 -0.0018 0.0174 0.2232 0.0550
(1.76) (1.36) (0.18) (0.29) (0.82) (-3.07) (-1.90) (-1.05) (-0.13) (0.55) (1.59) (0.39)
Sibling FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674

Table 7: Non-Linearities in the Effect of ADHD Symptoms on Financial Outcomes
This table reports potential non-linearities in the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes. The dependent variables indicate whether in the
past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60
days late on a bill payment, or a debt payment; had an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned
a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a payday loan; has emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the
time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether the individual had money shortages at the end of the month, on a
scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables are estimated using ordered logit. All
other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure, repossession, or
bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent
variable, is estimated using the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is
only available for the subsample of observations for which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves.
In Panel A, High ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is in the top 5%, and
0 otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is above median
and below the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. In Panel B, High ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores
is in the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is above
median and below the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. In Panel C, Top Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD
symptom scores is in the top tercile, and 0 otherwise. Middle Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD
symptom scores is in the middle tercile, and 0 otherwise. Each panel shows p-values from Wald tests of the equality of the two coefficient estimates presented for
each regression. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital
status in all models. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance
at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
Panel A: Top 5% ADHD (percentile)
54
High ADHD (top 5%) 0.1195 -0.0056 0.0245 0.1093*** -0.0160 -0.0018 -0.0696*** -0.0158 0.0110 -0.0552** 0.0530 0.2185**
(1.11) (-0.34) (0.86) (3.15) (-1.26) (-0.04) (-3.09) (-0.39) (0.82) (-2.23) (0.48) (1.98)
Moderate ADHD (50% to 94%) 0.2506*** 0.0392*** 0.0288*** 0.0398*** 0.0058 -0.0014 -0.0427*** 0.0096 0.0125** -0.0397*** 0.2077*** 0.2520***
(5.59) (5.51) (2.83) (3.45) (1.10) (-0.08) (-4.05) (0.65) (2.30) (-3.30) (4.71) (5.54)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.2114 0.0055 0.8763 0.0436 0.0765 0.9934 0.2161 0.5294 0.9144 0.5199 0.1566 0.7552
Panel B: Top 10% ADHD (percentile)
High ADHD (top 10%) 0.2413*** 0.0166 0.0383* 0.0776*** -0.0036 -0.0007 -0.0640*** 0.0199 0.0218** -0.0707*** 0.1608** 0.3123***
(3.06) (1.32) (1.91) (3.34) (-0.36) (-0.02) (-3.82) (0.71) (2.14) (-3.66) (2.10) (3.84)
Moderate ADHD (50% to 89%) 0.2415*** 0.0397*** 0.0270*** 0.0385*** 0.0059 -0.0016 -0.0411*** 0.0067 0.0106* -0.0353*** 0.2036*** 0.2385***
(5.28) (5.43) (2.59) (3.27) (1.08) (-0.09) (-3.81) (0.44) (1.94) (-2.87) (4.50) (5.14)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.9980 0.0676 0.5728 0.0923 0.3434 0.9761 0.1501 0.6380 0.2578 0.0581 0.5678 0.3513
Panel C: ADHD Terciles
Top Tercile ADHD 0.3380*** 0.0496*** 0.0366*** 0.0706*** 0.0074 -0.0003 -0.0670*** 0.0056 0.0179*** -0.0700*** 0.2749*** 0.3247***
(6.17) (5.80) (2.87) (4.87) (1.13) (-0.01) (-5.16) (0.30) (2.73) (-4.77) (5.01) (5.80)
Middle Tercile ADHD 0.1495*** 0.0389*** 0.0119 0.0228* 0.0104* 0.0057 -0.0305** 0.0200 0.0109* -0.0252* 0.1644*** 0.1582***
(2.88) (5.05) (1.06) (1.81) (1.88) (0.31) (-2.48) (1.18) (1.85) (-1.80) (3.16) (3.08)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.0003 0.2260 0.0507 0.0008 0.6468 0.7697 0.0022 0.4286 0.2727 0.0012 0.0342 0.0020
Table 8: ADHD Symptoms and Treatment
This table reports the relationship between ADHD symptoms, medication treatment, and financial outcomes. The dependent variables indicate whether in the past 12 months, an individual has
had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment, or a debt payment; had an account in
collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a payday loan; has emergency funds that cover 3 months
of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether the individual had money shortages at the
end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables are estimated using ordered logit. All other models
with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample
with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is estimated using the subsample where an individual owns a credit card.
All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of observations for which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is
only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. ADHD symptoms is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. In Panel A, we include a
Childhood Treatment variable that is the average response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Does [Child’s First Name] regularly take any medicines or prescription drugs to help control
[his/her] activity level or behavior?” posed to mothers with children between the ages of 4 and 14. In Panel B, Young Adulthood Treatment is the average response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to
the question “Do you regularly take any medicine or prescription drugs to help control your activity level or behavior?” asked to young adults 15 years or older. In Panel C, Current Treatment
equals 1 in years an individual answers “yes” to the above question regarding medication posed to young adults, and equals 0 in years an individual answers “no” in the 2010, 2012, and 2014
survey waves; that is, the Current Treatment variable is measured concurrently with the dependent variable. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and
risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *,
**, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
Panel A: Childhood Treatment
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.5209*** 0.0743*** 0.0601*** 0.1032*** 0.0092 0.0143 -0.0925*** 0.0409 0.0252** -0.1109*** 0.3958*** 0.5536***
(6.23) (5.79) (3.14) (4.60) (0.93) (0.43) (-4.65) (1.42) (2.47) (-4.90) (4.76) (6.46)
Childhood Treatment 2.2250* 0.4390** -0.0021 -0.1713 -0.0855 -0.2295 -0.2806 -0.1093 -0.1024 -0.4644 0.8971 1.7927
55
(1.86) (2.20) (-0.01) (-0.53) (-1.19) (-0.50) (-1.15) (-0.26) (-1.02) (-1.64) (0.86) (1.46)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -2.4646* -0.5126** 0.0290 0.2072 0.0722 0.1889 0.1986 0.0795 0.1273 0.4030 -0.7800 -2.2803
× Childhood Treatment (-1.80) (-2.35) (0.10) (0.55) (0.79) (0.35) (0.72) (0.17) (1.05) (1.23) (-0.64) (-1.61)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel B: Young Adulthood (YA) Treatment
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.5527*** 0.0755*** 0.0703*** 0.0956*** 0.0139 0.0164 -0.0942*** 0.0486 0.0303*** -0.1158*** 0.4206*** 0.5388***
(6.58) (5.87) (3.55) (4.15) (1.39) (0.49) (-4.68) (1.60) (2.94) (-5.04) (4.95) (6.26)
YA Treatment 3.3749*** 0.3354*** 0.4857*** 0.3604** 0.2307*** -0.1441 -0.2121* 0.3041 0.2149*** -0.2597 2.7504*** 2.5801***
(5.72) (3.37) (3.15) (2.26) (2.74) (-0.68) (-1.67) (1.60) (2.71) (-1.64) (4.46) (3.81)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -3.2779*** -0.3493** -0.5192** -0.0231 -0.2775** 0.0059 0.0653 -0.4373 -0.2212** 0.1759 -2.2685** -2.2075**
× YA Treatment (-3.79) (-2.37) (-2.16) (-0.08) (-2.26) (0.02) (0.36) (-1.30) (-2.02) (0.76) (-2.56) (-2.29)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel C: Current Treatment
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.5154*** 0.0746*** 0.0656*** 0.0997*** 0.0107 0.0146 -0.1010*** 0.0510* 0.0294*** -0.1215*** 0.4259*** 0.5137***
(6.32) (5.91) (3.44) (4.55) (1.09) (0.45) (-5.18) (1.78) (2.94) (-5.49) (5.19) (6.13)
Current Treatment 0.7473*** 0.1167*** 0.1487*** 0.0878* 0.0482** -0.0425 -0.0518 0.0922* 0.0645** -0.0790* 0.6740*** 0.5618***
(3.90) (3.24) (3.23) (1.67) (1.99) (-0.59) (-1.23) (1.71) (2.53) (-1.71) (3.66) (2.79)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -0.4027 -0.1112* -0.1259 0.0389 -0.0561 -0.0182 0.0409 -0.1966** -0.0618 0.0931 -0.5609* -0.1401
× Current Treatment (-1.27) (-1.94) (-1.62) (0.41) (-1.42) (-0.15) (0.63) (-1.97) (-1.57) (1.20) (-1.90) (-0.43)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674

Appendices
A. Tests of Fit for Ordered Logit Models

The ordered logit relies on the parallel regression assumption (or proportional regression
assumption) that coefficients estimated for each pair of outcome groups (e.g., the lowest
versus all higher categories) is the same. For example, for an outcome variable with four
categories, the ordered logit assumes that the effect of X is the same for P r(Y > 1),
P r(Y > 2), and P r(Y > 3). This assumption follows from the fact that only one set of
coefficients is estimated in the ordered logit model. To test whether this parallel regression
assumption holds for our ordered logit models, we use the Brant test, which assesses whether
the observed deviations from the ordered logit are larger than that attributable to chance
(Brant, 1990).
For all three ordinal dependent variables (difficulty paying bills, delay buying necessities,
and money shortages at month end), we find that the p-value of the overall test is signif-
icant, which suggests that the parallel regression assumption has been violated. However
when looking at individual variables, the ADHD symptom percentile variable violates the
proportional odds assumption only in the model with money shortages at month end as the
dependent variable.
A violation of the Brant test suggests that the generalized ordered logit, which relaxes
the parallel regression assumption and fits a separate set of regression coefficients for each
comparison between pairs of outcome groups, may be a better fit (Williams, 2016). We
compare the fit of the ordered logit with the generalized ordered logit and find that the
Bayesian information criterion (BIC) suggests the ordered logit is a better fit. Further,
we compare the fit of the ordered logit with the partial proportional odds model, which
identifies variables that are candidates for having the parallel regression assumption relaxed
and relaxes the assumption for some variables, but not others. Based on these tests, the
BIC provides strong support for the ordered logit over both the generalized ordered logit as
well the partial proportional odds model. Given that the ordered logit is more parsimonious
and thus easier to interpret (Williams, 2006; Williams, 2016), as well as the existence of a
consistent estimator for the ordered logit with fixed effects which is necessary to estimate
our models with sibling fixed effects, we continue to use the ordered logit model.8
Though linear regressions are much simpler to interpret than ordered logit models, we
8
Results using the generalized ordered logit and partial proportional odds model are qualitatively similar
in magnitude and statistical significance. The results are available by request, except in the case of sibling
fixed effects models for which there does not currently exist a consistent estimator for either generalized
ordered logit or partial proportional odds models with fixed effects.
56
note here that estimating OLS regressions for ordinal dependent variables may result in
biased estimates (Baetschmann, Staub, and Winkelmann, 2015). Linear regression assumes
that each category is equally spaced. For example, when a respondent indicates how much

difficulty they have paying bills on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of
difficulty), linear regression assumes that the distance between each of the five categories is
equal, whereas ordered logit relaxes this assumption. When there are many outcome cate-
gories and the distribution of responses is normal, OLS may be an acceptable approximation.
In Panel B of Table 1, of the three ordinal outcome variables, only money shortages at month
end is somewhat normally distributed across categories; however with only four outcome cat-
egories, OLS may not provide the most consistent estimates. Nonetheless, we present OLS
results for ordinal variables in the tables presented in Appendix B for comparison; results
are similar in significance and sign.
B. Marginal Effects for Ordered Logit Models

In the following tables, we present marginal effects estimated at the mean on outcome
categories pertaining to each of the three ordinal dependent variables (difficulty paying bills,
delay buying necessities, and money shortages at month end) from ordered logit models.
These marginal effects are what we use to discuss the economic significance of estimates in
the paper. We also present coefficient estimates for models with ordinal dependent variables
estimated using OLS, as discussed in Appendix A.
The results in each table below correspond to ordered logit models in each of the main
tables in the paper. Since the magnitude of marginal effects cannot be determined for the
ordered logit models with fixed effects estimated using the BUC estimator (Baetschmann,
Staub, and Winkelmann, 2015), in Table B5 we only present OLS results for models with
sibling fixed effects.
57
Table B1: OLS and Ordered Logit Marginal Effects for Table 2: ADHD Symptoms and Financial
Distress
This table reports OLS results as well as marginal effects estimated at the mean from ordered logit
models for the ordinal dependent variable difficulty paying bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at
all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty), in the past 12 months. ADHD symptoms is an individual’s

percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. These results
correspond to the regression in column (2) of Table 2. All other variables are as previously
described. Column (1) reports coefficient estimates from OLS and column (2) reports coefficient
estimates from ordered logit, including cutpoints. Columns (3) through (7) report marginal effects
evaluated at the mean for each of the five outcomes. All models are estimated using the full
sample. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk
tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. t-statistics are
reported in parentheses. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and ***
indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

OLS Ordered Logit
Marginal Effects for Difficulty paying bills outcomes
Difficulty Difficulty No A little Some Quite A great
paying paying difficulty difficulty difficulty a bit of deal of
bills bills at all (2) (3) difficulty difficulty
(1) (4) (5)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.307*** 0.508*** -0.119*** 0.014*** 0.062*** 0.028*** 0.016***
(6.78) (6.31) (-6.32) (5.25) (6.26) (6.19) (6.06)
Male -0.267*** -0.474*** 0.112*** -0.013*** -0.058*** -0.026*** -0.015***
(-11.11) (-10.84) (10.87) (-7.15) (-10.58) (-10.23) (-9.66)
College -0.258*** -0.546*** 0.128*** -0.015*** -0.066*** -0.030*** -0.017***
(-9.02) (-9.35) (9.33) (-6.45) (-9.21) (-9.01) (-8.62)
High school -0.102*** -0.173*** 0.041*** -0.005*** -0.021*** -0.009*** -0.005***
(-4.95) (-4.66) (4.66) (-4.23) (-4.64) (-4.60) (-4.53)
Income (in $000’s) -0.006*** -0.013*** 0.003*** -0.000*** -0.002*** -0.001*** -0.000***
(-18.26) (-15.90) (15.81) (-7.79) (-15.37) (-14.17) (-12.81)
Net worth (in $000’s) -0.001*** -0.003*** 0.001*** -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000***
(-3.57) (-3.88) (3.87) (-3.43) (-3.87) (-3.90) (-3.86)
Cognitive ability (percentile) -0.010 0.041 -0.010 0.001 0.005 0.002 0.001
(-0.19) (0.47) (-0.47) (0.46) (0.47) (0.47) (0.47)
Risk tolerance (percentile) 0.148*** 0.301*** -0.071*** 0.009*** 0.037*** 0.016*** 0.009***
(3.31) (3.75) (-3.75) (3.48) (3.74) (3.73) (3.70)
Intercept/Cutpoint 1 2.045*** -0.494***
(35.24) (-4.87)
Cutpoint 2 0.890***
(8.73)
Cutpoint 3 2.268***
(21.38)
Cutpoint 4 3.423***
(30.29)
Race FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Age FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Marital Status FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674
Pseudo R-squared 0.098 0.042 0.042 0.042 0.042 0.042 0.042
58
Table B2: OLS and Ordered Logit Marginal Effects for Table 3: ADHD Symptoms and Financial Preparedness and Freedom
This table reports OLS results as well as marginal effects estimated at the mean from ordered logit models for the ordinal dependent variables
delay buying necessities, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the time), and money shortages at month end, on a scale of 1 (more than enough
money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). ADHD symptoms is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom
scores, ranging from 0 to 1. These results correspond to the regression in columns (6) and (7) of Table 3. All other variables are as previously
described. Columns (1) and (8) report coefficient estimates from OLS regressions. Columns (2) and (9) report coefficient estimates from
ordered logit, including cutpoints. Columns (3) through (7) and (10) through (13) report marginal effects evaluated at the mean for each of the
outcomes for the two ordinal dependent variables. All models are estimated using the full sample. We include controls for gender, education,
income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. t-statistics are
reported in parentheses. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1%
significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)
OLS Ordered Logit OLS Ordered Logit
Marginal Effects for Marginal Effects for
Delay buying necessity outcomes Money shortages at month end outcomes
Delay Delay Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently All the time Money Money More than Some Just enough Not enough
buying buying (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) shortages at shortages at enough money money to make to make
necessity necessity month end month end left over left over ends meet ends meet
(1) (2) (3) (4)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.249*** 0.406*** -0.099*** 0.019*** 0.047*** 0.020*** 0.013*** 0.207*** 0.523*** -0.044*** -0.085*** 0.101*** 0.028***
(5.49) (5.05) (-5.05) (4.86) (5.03) (4.95) (4.93) (6.63) (6.34) (-6.34) (-6.25) (6.33) (6.20)
59
Male -0.196*** -0.362*** 0.088*** -0.017*** -0.042*** -0.018*** -0.012*** -0.229*** -0.602*** 0.050*** 0.098*** -0.116*** -0.032***
(-8.01) (-8.18) (8.19) (-7.37) (-8.06) (-7.82) (-7.72) (-13.76) (-13.56) (13.20) (12.87) (-13.34) (-12.50)
College -0.218*** -0.461*** 0.113*** -0.021*** -0.053*** -0.023*** -0.015*** -0.171*** -0.446*** 0.037*** 0.073*** -0.086*** -0.024***
(-7.69) (-7.83) (7.82) (-6.95) (-7.77) (-7.59) (-7.37) (-7.99) (-7.83) (7.69) (7.72) (-7.80) (-7.56)
High school -0.068*** -0.111*** 0.027*** -0.005*** -0.013*** -0.006*** -0.004*** -0.036** -0.080** 0.007** 0.013** -0.015** -0.004**
(-3.30) (-2.97) (2.97) (-2.93) (-2.96) (-2.95) (-2.93) (-2.45) (-2.10) (2.09) (2.09) (-2.10) (-2.09)
Income (in $000’s) -0.006*** -0.013*** 0.003*** -0.001*** -0.001*** -0.001*** -0.000*** -0.006*** -0.017*** 0.001*** 0.003*** -0.003*** -0.001***
(-18.02) (-15.35) (15.33) (-11.13) (-14.79) (-13.44) (-12.54) (-21.56) (-20.01) (18.35) (18.36) (-19.46) (-16.97)
Net worth (in $000’s) -0.000* -0.001 0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.001*** -0.003*** 0.000*** 0.000*** -0.001*** -0.000***
(-1.80) (-1.18) (1.18) (-1.17) (-1.18) (-1.18) (-1.18) (-3.93) (-3.76) (3.74) (3.76) (-3.75) (-3.75)
Cognitive ability (percentile) -0.199*** -0.314*** 0.077*** -0.015*** -0.036*** -0.016*** -0.010*** -0.194*** -0.544*** 0.045*** 0.089*** -0.105*** -0.029***
(-3.97) (-3.51) (3.50) (-3.41) (-3.50) (-3.51) (-3.44) (-5.64) (-5.93) (5.92) (5.86) (-5.89) (-5.90)
Risk tolerance (percentile) 0.087* 0.192** -0.047** 0.009** 0.022** 0.010** 0.006** 0.031 0.088 -0.007 -0.014 0.017 0.005
(1.93) (2.36) (-2.36) (2.35) (2.36) (2.35) (2.34) (1.00) (1.08) (-1.08) (-1.08) (1.08) (1.08)
Intercept/Cutpoint 1 1.982*** -0.342*** 2.503*** -2.585***
(35.06) (-3.38) (64.18) (-24.03)
Cutpoint 2 0.940*** -0.061
(9.29) (-0.59)
Cutpoint 3 2.253*** 2.508***
(21.60) (23.56)
Cutpoint 4 3.306***
(29.34)
Race FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Age FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Marital Status FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674
Pseudo R-squared 0.104 0.043 0.043 0.043 0.043 0.043 0.043 0.168 0.080 0.080 0.080 0.080 0.080

Table B3: OLS and Ordered Logit Marginal Effects for Table 4: Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentations of ADHD Symptoms
and Financial Outcomes
difficulty paying bills, delay buying necessities, and money shortages at month end. Inattentive (percentile) is an individual’s percentile rank
in the distribution of inattentive symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) is an individual’s percentile rank
in the distribution of hyperactive-impulsive symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. All other variables are as previously described. Panel C
shows both the Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive variables in the same regression. These results correspond to the regression in columns
(1), (11), and (12) of Table 4. Columns (1), (7), and (13) report coefficient estimates from OLS regressions. Columns (2) through (6), (8)
through (12), and (14) through (17) report marginal effects evaluated at the mean for each of the outcomes for the three ordinal dependent
variables. All models are estimated using the full sample. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and
risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. t-statistics are reported in parentheses. All standard
errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17)
OLS Ordered Logit OLS Ordered Logit OLS Ordered Logit
Marginal Effects for Marginal Effects for Marginal Effects for

Difficulty paying bills outcomes Delay buying necessity outcomes Money shortages at month end outcomes
60
Difficulty No A little Some Quite A great Delay Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently All the time Money More than Some Just enough Not enough
paying difficulty difficulty difficulty a bit of deal of buying (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) shortages at enough money money to make to make
bills at all (2) (3) difficulty difficulty necessity month end left over left over ends meet ends meet
(1) (4) (5) (1) (2) (3) (4)
Panel A: Inattentive Presentation
Inattentive (percentile) 0.242*** -0.089*** 0.011*** 0.046*** 0.021*** 0.012*** 0.207*** -0.082*** 0.016*** 0.038*** 0.017*** 0.011*** 0.179*** -0.038*** -0.074*** 0.088*** 0.025***
(5.19) (-4.60) (4.13) (4.58) (4.55) (4.48) (4.43) (-4.04) (3.94) (4.03) (3.98) (3.98) (5.68) (-5.48) (-5.40) (5.46) (5.37)
Control Variables and FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674
R-squared and Pseudo R-squared 0.096 0.041 0.041 0.041 0.041 0.041 0.103 0.043 0.043 0.043 0.043 0.043 0.167 0.079 0.079 0.079 0.079
Panel B: Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation
Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) 0.301*** -0.123*** 0.015*** 0.063*** 0.028*** 0.016*** 0.231*** -0.094*** 0.018*** 0.044*** 0.019*** 0.013*** 0.194*** -0.041*** -0.080*** 0.095*** 0.027***
(6.74) (-6.51) (5.36) (6.44) (6.37) (6.26) (5.14) (-4.80) (4.62) (4.78) (4.71) (4.69) (6.21) (-5.95) (-5.88) (5.94) (5.84)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674
Panel C: Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation
Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) 0.258*** -0.115*** 0.014*** 0.059*** 0.027*** 0.015*** 0.175*** -0.074*** 0.014*** 0.035*** 0.015*** 0.010*** 0.143*** -0.030*** -0.058*** 0.069*** 0.019***
(4.36) (-4.58) (4.11) (4.54) (4.53) (4.51) (2.92) (-2.81) (2.77) (2.81) (2.80) (2.79) (3.47) (-3.30) (-3.29) (3.30) (3.28)
Inattentive (percentile) 0.070 -0.012 0.001 0.006 0.003 0.002 0.090 -0.032 0.006 0.015 0.006 0.004 0.084** -0.018** -0.035** 0.042** 0.012**
(1.13) (-0.48) (0.48) (0.48) (0.48) (0.48) (1.44) (-1.16) (1.16) (1.16) (1.16) (1.16) (2.03) (-1.99) (-1.98) (1.98) (1.98)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674

Table B4: OLS and Ordered Logit Marginal Effects for Table 5: Individual Self-Efficacy and Personality Traits
difficulty paying bills, delay buying necessities, and money shortages at month end. ADHD symptoms is an individual’s percentile rank in the
distribution of ADHD symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. Self-efficacy is an individual’s percentile rank, ranging from 0 to 1, measured
using the Pearlin Mastery score. Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism are an individual’s percentile rank,
ranging from 0 to 1, in the distribution of each of these Big Five personality traits. These results correspond to the regression in columns (1),
(11), and (12) of Table 5. Columns (1), (7), and (13) report coefficient estimates from OLS regressions. Columns (2) through (6), (8) through
(12), and (14) through (17) report marginal effects evaluated at the mean for each of the outcomes for the three ordinal dependent variables. All
models are estimated using the full sample. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance,
as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. t-statistics are reported in parentheses. All standard errors are clustered
at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17)

(1) (4) (5) (1) (2) (3) (4)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.242*** -0.093*** 0.011*** 0.049*** 0.022*** 0.012*** 0.162*** -0.065*** 0.013*** 0.031*** 0.013*** 0.008*** 0.160*** -0.033*** -0.067*** 0.079*** 0.021***
(5.30) (-4.85) (4.32) (4.82) (4.79) (4.74) (3.57) (-3.24) (3.19) (3.23) (3.20) (3.21) (5.11) (-4.88) (-4.83) (4.87) (4.80)
Self-efficacy (percentile) -0.359*** 0.145*** -0.018*** -0.075*** -0.033*** -0.019*** -0.493*** 0.208*** -0.040*** -0.099*** -0.042*** -0.027*** -0.265*** 0.058*** 0.116*** -0.137*** -0.037***
(-7.90) (7.46) (-5.73) (-7.44) (-7.29) (-6.97) (-10.71) (10.13) (-8.61) (-9.93) (-9.64) (-9.15) (-8.59) (8.36) (8.42) (-8.47) (-8.33)
Openness (percentile) 0.063 -0.026 0.003 0.014 0.006 0.003 0.143*** -0.066*** 0.013*** 0.031*** 0.013*** 0.009*** 0.063** -0.013* -0.026* 0.030* 0.008*
(1.41) (-1.42) (1.40) (1.42) (1.42) (1.41) (3.17) (-3.37) (3.31) (3.36) (3.35) (3.31) (2.11) (-1.95) (-1.96) (1.96) (1.95)
Conscientiousness (percentile) -0.012 0.015 -0.002 -0.008 -0.003 -0.002 -0.047 0.031 -0.006 -0.015 -0.006 -0.004 -0.001 -0.001 -0.002 0.002 0.000
(-0.26) (0.81) (-0.81) (-0.81) (-0.81) (-0.81) (-1.04) (1.55) (-1.54) (-1.55) (-1.55) (-1.55) (-0.03) (-0.12) (-0.12) (0.12) (0.12)
Extraversion (percentile) -0.147*** 0.059*** -0.007*** -0.031*** -0.014*** -0.008*** -0.135*** 0.061*** -0.012*** -0.029*** -0.012*** -0.008*** -0.112*** 0.024*** 0.048*** -0.057*** -0.015***
(-3.44) (3.27) (-3.12) (-3.26) (-3.25) (-3.22) (-3.10) (3.17) (-3.12) (-3.16) (-3.13) (-3.14) (-3.80) (3.71) (3.70) (-3.71) (-3.70)
Agreeableness (percentile) 0.132*** -0.054*** 0.007*** 0.028*** 0.013*** 0.007*** 0.151*** -0.062*** 0.012*** 0.029*** 0.012*** 0.008*** 0.074** -0.016** -0.032** 0.038** 0.010**
(3.05) (-2.97) (2.82) (2.97) (2.95) (2.94) (3.45) (-3.21) (3.17) (3.19) (3.18) (3.17) (2.46) (-2.42) (-2.42) (2.42) (2.41)
Neuroticism (percentile) 0.203*** -0.076*** 0.009*** 0.039*** 0.017*** 0.010*** 0.206*** -0.077*** 0.015*** 0.037*** 0.016*** 0.010*** 0.140*** -0.031*** -0.063*** 0.075*** 0.020***
(4.49) (-4.04) (3.73) (4.03) (4.01) (3.94) (4.48) (-3.90) (3.83) (3.89) (3.85) (3.80) (4.62) (-4.72) (-4.68) (4.72) (4.65)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674

Table B5: OLS and Ordered Logit Marginal Effects for Table 6: Sibling Fixed Effects
This table reports results estimated using OLS with fixed effects for the ordinal dependent vari-

ables difficulty paying bills, delay buying necessities, and money shortages at month end. ADHD
symptoms is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores, ranging
from 0 to 1. These results correspond to the regression in columns (1), (11), and (12) of Table
6. All other variables are as previously described. All other models are estimated using the full
sample. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk
tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, marital status, as well as for each sibling group in
all models. t-statistics are reported in parentheses. All standard errors are clustered by the sibling
group. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3)

OLS
Difficulty Delay Money
paying buying shortages at
bills necessity month end
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.263*** 0.204*** 0.152***
(3.74) (2.83) (3.08)
Male -0.258*** -0.183*** -0.223***
(-8.74) (-6.01) (-10.93)
College -0.075** -0.066** -0.064**
(-2.27) (-2.00) (-2.55)
High school -0.087*** -0.046* -0.020
(-3.80) (-1.93) (-1.19)
Income (in $000’s) -0.005*** -0.005*** -0.005***
(-13.29) (-11.25) (-16.52)
Net worth (in $000’s) -0.000** -0.000 -0.000**
(-2.13) (-0.75) (-1.97)
Cognitive ability (percentile) 0.045 -0.120 -0.082
(0.53) (-1.41) (-1.39)
Risk tolerance (percentile) 0.099* 0.106* 0.003
(1.72) (1.81) (0.09)
Intercept 2.143*** 2.025*** 2.552***
(29.80) (27.24) (51.24)
Control Variables and FE Yes Yes Yes
Sibling FE Yes Yes Yes
Observations 11674 11674 11674
R-squared and Pseudo R-squared 0.456 0.447 0.488
62
Table B6: OLS and Ordered Logit Marginal Effects for Table 7: Non-Linearities
difficulty paying bills, delay buying necessities, and money shortages at month end. In Panel A, High ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1
if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is in the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator
variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is above median and below the top 5%, and
0 otherwise. In Panel B, High ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the
top 10%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is
above median and below the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. In Panel C, Top Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s
percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the top tercile, and 0 otherwise. Middle Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if
an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the middle tercile, and 0 otherwise. These results correspond to the regression in
columns (1), (11), and (12) of Table 7. Columns (1), (7), and (13) report coefficient estimates from OLS regressions. Columns (2) through (6),
(8) through (12), and (14) through (17) report marginal effects evaluated at the mean for each of the outcomes for the three ordinal dependent
variables. All models are estimated using the full sample. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and
risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. t-statistics are reported in parentheses. All standard errors
are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17)

(1) (4) (5) (1) (2) (3) (4)
Panel A: Top 5% ADHD Symptoms
High ADHD (top 5%) 0.083 -0.028 0.003 0.015 0.007 0.004 0.048 -0.013 0.002 0.006 0.003 0.002 0.087** -0.018** -0.036** 0.042** 0.012**
(1.28) (-1.11) (1.10) (1.11) (1.11) (1.11) (0.71) (-0.48) (0.48) (0.48) (0.48) (0.47) (2.05) (-1.99) (-1.98) (1.98) (1.98)
Moderate ADHD (50% to 94%) 0.144*** -0.059*** 0.007*** 0.030*** 0.014*** 0.008*** 0.120*** -0.051*** 0.010*** 0.024*** 0.010*** 0.007*** 0.100*** -0.021*** -0.041*** 0.049*** 0.014***
(5.75) (-5.60) (4.79) (5.54) (5.52) (5.48) (4.84) (-4.71) (4.53) (4.69) (4.64) (4.63) (5.80) (-5.54) (-5.47) (5.52) (5.45)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674
Panel B: Top 10% ADHD Symptoms
High ADHD (top 10%) 0.159*** -0.057*** 0.007*** 0.029*** 0.013*** 0.007*** 0.100** -0.039** 0.008** 0.018** 0.008** 0.005** 0.124*** -0.026*** -0.051*** 0.060*** 0.017***
(3.42) (-3.07) (2.92) (3.06) (3.05) (3.02) (2.19) (-2.10) (2.09) (2.10) (2.10) (2.09) (4.03) (-3.85) (-3.82) (3.84) (3.81)
Moderate ADHD (50% to 89%) 0.136*** -0.057*** 0.007*** 0.029*** 0.013*** 0.007*** 0.118*** -0.050*** 0.010*** 0.023*** 0.010*** 0.007*** 0.094*** -0.020*** -0.039*** 0.046*** 0.013***
(5.34) (-5.29) (4.59) (5.24) (5.22) (5.20) (4.63) (-4.50) (4.35) (4.48) (4.44) (4.43) (5.37) (-5.15) (-5.09) (5.13) (5.08)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674
Panel C: ADHD Symptom Terciles
Top Tercile ADHD 0.201*** -0.079*** 0.010*** 0.041*** 0.018*** 0.010*** 0.164*** -0.067*** 0.013*** 0.032*** 0.014*** 0.009*** 0.129*** -0.027*** -0.053*** 0.063*** 0.017***
(6.55) (-6.18) (5.16) (6.12) (6.06) (5.97) (5.34) (-5.01) (4.82) (4.98) (4.91) (4.89) (6.10) (-5.81) (-5.72) (5.78) (5.68)
Middle Tercile ADHD 0.085*** -0.035*** 0.004*** 0.018*** 0.008*** 0.005*** 0.092*** -0.040*** 0.008*** 0.019*** 0.008*** 0.005*** 0.064*** -0.013*** -0.026*** 0.030*** 0.009***
(3.01) (-2.88) (2.76) (2.88) (2.86) (2.87) (3.26) (-3.16) (3.10) (3.16) (3.13) (3.14) (3.28) (-3.08) (-3.07) (3.08) (3.05)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674

Table B7: OLS and Ordered Logit Marginal Effects for Table 8: ADHD Symptoms and Treatment
difficulty paying bills, delay buying necessities, and money shortages at month end. In Panel A, we include a Childhood Treatment variable
that is the average response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Does [Child’s First Name] regularly take any medicines or prescription
drugs to help control [his/her] activity level or behavior?” posed to mothers with children between the ages of 4 and 14. In Panel B, Young
Adulthood Treatment is the average response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Do you regularly take any medicine or prescription
drugs to help control your activity level or behavior?” asked to young adults 15 years or older. In Panel C, Current Treatment equals 1 in years
an individual answers “yes” to the above question regarding medication posed to young adults, and equals 0 in years an individual answers “no”
in the 2010, 2012, and 2014 survey waves; that is, the Current Treatment variable is measured concurrently with the dependent variable. These
results correspond to the regression in columns (1), (11), and (12) of Table 8. Columns (1), (7), and (13) report coefficient estimates from OLS
regressions. Columns (2) through (6), (8) through (12), and (14) through (17) report marginal effects evaluated at the mean for each of the
outcomes for the three ordinal dependent variables. All models are estimated using the full sample. We include controls for gender, education,
income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. t-statistics are
reported in parentheses. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1%
significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17)

(1) (4) (5) (1) (2) (3) (4)
Panel A: Childhood Treatment
(6.70) (-6.23) (5.21) (6.17) (6.11) (6.00) (5.14) (-4.77) (4.60) (4.74) (4.68) (4.66) (6.72) (-6.46) (-6.36) (6.44) (6.31)
Childhood Treatment 1.164* -0.523* 0.063* 0.270* 0.121* 0.068* 0.062 -0.219 0.042 0.103 0.045 0.029 0.579 -0.150 -0.292 0.346 0.096
(1.75) (-1.86) (1.83) (1.86) (1.85) (1.86) (0.11) (-0.86) (0.86) (0.86) (0.86) (0.86) (1.26) (-1.46) (-1.46) (1.46) (1.46)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -1.290* 0.579* -0.070* -0.299* -0.134* -0.076* 0.060 0.191 -0.036 -0.090 -0.039 -0.026 -0.749 0.191 0.372 -0.440 -0.123
× Childhood Treatment (-1.68) (1.80) (-1.77) (-1.80) (-1.80) (-1.80) (0.09) (0.64) (-0.64) (-0.64) (-0.64) (-0.64) (-1.41) (1.61) (1.61) (-1.61) (-1.61)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674
Panel B: Young Adulthood (YA) Treatment
(7.05) (-6.59) (5.38) (6.52) (6.45) (6.30) (5.38) (-4.95) (4.78) (4.92) (4.84) (4.83) (6.46) (-6.26) (-6.16) (6.24) (6.11)
YA Treatment 2.057*** -0.792*** 0.095*** 0.411*** 0.184*** 0.103*** 1.662*** -0.672*** 0.128*** 0.317*** 0.138*** 0.089*** 0.906*** -0.215*** -0.422*** 0.498*** 0.138***
(5.75) (-5.73) (4.91) (5.69) (5.64) (5.49) (4.69) (-4.46) (4.35) (4.43) (4.39) (4.36) (3.60) (-3.82) (-3.78) (3.80) (3.76)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -1.934*** 0.770*** -0.092*** -0.399*** -0.178*** -0.100*** -1.347** 0.555** -0.106** -0.262** -0.114** -0.074** -0.727** 0.184** 0.361** -0.426** -0.118**
× YA Treatment (-3.67) (3.79) (-3.51) (-3.78) (-3.77) (-3.73) (-2.56) (2.56) (-2.54) (-2.55) (-2.54) (-2.54) (-2.03) (2.30) (2.29) (-2.29) (-2.28)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674
Panel C: Current Treatment
(6.80) (-6.32) (5.24) (6.26) (6.19) (6.06) (5.62) (-5.20) (4.99) (5.17) (5.08) (5.06) (6.40) (-6.13) (-6.05) (6.12) (5.99)
Current Treatment 0.469*** -0.176*** 0.021*** 0.091*** 0.041*** 0.023*** 0.412*** -0.165*** 0.032*** 0.078*** 0.034*** 0.022*** 0.200*** -0.047*** -0.092*** 0.108*** 0.030***
(4.22) (-3.90) (3.61) (3.90) (3.87) (3.82) (3.92) (-3.66) (3.59) (3.65) (3.62) (3.60) (2.71) (-2.80) (-2.78) (2.79) (2.77)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -0.247 0.095 -0.011 -0.049 -0.022 -0.012 -0.314* 0.137* -0.026* -0.065* -0.028* -0.018* -0.045 0.012 0.023 -0.027 -0.007
× Current Treatment (-1.33) (1.27) (-1.26) (-1.27) (-1.27) (-1.27) (-1.81) (1.90) (-1.89) (-1.90) (-1.90) (-1.90) (-0.37) (0.43) (0.43) (-0.43) (-0.43)
Observations 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674 11674

C. Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms
and Impatience

To determine whether the relationship between inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symp-
toms and financial outcome is driven by a relationship between impatience and financial
outcomes, we replicate the results shown in Table 4 controlling for impatience. To measure
impatience, we use a revealed-preference-based measure used in DellaVigna and Paserman
(2005) and Kuhnen and Melzer (2018). We construct indicators for being restless or impa-
tient during the survey interview, having ever smoked, having ever been a heavy drinker (i.e.,
drinking at least several times a month with more than two drinks each time), and having
had sexual intercourse without contraceptives while unmarried using survey waves prior to
and including 2008. We take the average of these four “yes” (1) or “no” (0) variables as a
proxy for impatience.9 Similar to other variables, we use an individual’s percentile rank in
the distribution of impatience scores in our analysis.
Table C1 shows that impatience is significantly associated with all financial outcomes,
except leverage, in the expected direction; that is, financial distress increases with impa-
tience and financial preparedness and well-being decrease with impatience. The additional
control, however, has little effect on our main findings; the magnitudes and statistical sig-
nificance of coefficient estimates on inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are
similar to those shown in in Table 4 in all three panels. Thus, impatience does not appear
to explain the relationship between inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms and
financial outcomes.
9
Results are similar if we use the first principal component of these four measures, as done in DellaVigna
and Paserman (2005).
65
Table C1: Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms Controlling for Impatience
This table reports the effect of inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms on financial outcomes controlling for impatience. Impatience is measured as the average responses from
survey waves prior to 2010 for being restless or impatient during the survey interview, having ever smoked, having ever been a heavy drinker (i.e., drinking at least several times a month with
more than two drinks each time), and having had sexual intercourse without contraceptives while unmarried. Impatience (percentile) is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of
impatience scores, ranging from 0 to 1. The dependent variables indicate whether in the past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at
all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment, or a debt payment; had an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy;
leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a payday loan; has emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all
the time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether the individual had money shortages at the end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than
enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables are estimated using ordered logit. All other models with binary dependent variables are
estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the
current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is estimated using the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. All other models are
estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of observations for which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in
the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. Panel A shows results for the inattentive symptoms of ADHD based on the severity of the following behaviors: “has difficulty concentrating, cannot pay
attention for long,” “is easily confused, seems to be in a fog,” and “has a lot of difficulty getting [his/her] mind off certain thoughts.” Inattentive (percentile) is an individual’s percentile
rank in the distribution of inattentive symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. Panel B shows results for the hyperactive-impulsive symptoms of ADHD based on the severity of the following
behaviors: “is impulsive, or acts without thinking” and “is restless or overly active, cannot sit still.” Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution
of hyperactive-impulsive symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. Panel C shows both the Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive variables in the same regression, as well as the p-values from
Wald tests of the equality of coefficients for these two variables. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for
race, age, and marital status in all models. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance
at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
Panel A: Inattentive Presentation
66
Inattentive (percentile) 0.3552*** 0.0554*** 0.0358* 0.0768*** 0.0018 0.0053 -0.0823*** 0.0077 0.0214** -0.0772*** 0.3096*** 0.4302***
(4.31) (4.23) (1.89) (3.50) (0.19) (0.16) (-4.18) (0.27) (2.13) (-3.50) (3.73) (5.16)
Impatience (percentile) 0.4808*** 0.0588*** 0.0646*** 0.1111*** 0.0228** 0.0088 -0.1114*** 0.1384*** 0.0326*** -0.1308*** 0.4811*** 0.5621***
(5.09) (3.94) (3.11) (4.74) (2.12) (0.26) (-5.03) (4.55) (2.88) (-5.13) (5.04) (5.87)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel B: Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation
Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) 0.4835*** 0.0569*** 0.0660*** 0.1082*** 0.0114 0.0157 -0.0857*** 0.0485* 0.0243** -0.1189*** 0.3453*** 0.4490***
(5.99) (4.55) (3.48) (5.02) (1.20) (0.50) (-4.53) (1.78) (2.57) (-5.60) (4.27) (5.41)
Impatience (percentile) 0.4460*** 0.0556*** 0.0584*** 0.1014*** 0.0216** 0.0074 -0.1065*** 0.1345*** 0.0311*** -0.1229*** 0.4600*** 0.5366***
(4.70) (3.72) (2.81) (4.31) (1.99) (0.21) (-4.79) (4.40) (2.75) (-4.82) (4.81) (5.59)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel C: Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation
Hyperactive-Impulsive (percentile) 0.4462*** 0.0385** 0.0740*** 0.1027*** 0.0173 0.0207 -0.0592** 0.0726** 0.0188 -0.1206*** 0.2610** 0.3094***
(4.16) (2.21) (2.91) (3.78) (1.46) (0.51) (-2.40) (2.08) (1.62) (-4.32) (2.40) (2.84)
Inattentive (percentile) 0.0600 0.0299 -0.0130 0.0090 -0.0096 -0.0082 -0.0431* -0.0400 0.0090 0.0028 0.1352 0.2257**
(0.55) (1.64) (-0.51) (0.33) (-0.79) (-0.19) (-1.68) (-1.10) (0.73) (0.10) (1.21) (2.06)
Impatience (percentile) 0.4467*** 0.0559*** 0.0578*** 0.1018*** 0.0212* 0.0073 -0.1069*** 0.1332*** 0.0312*** -0.1229*** 0.4614*** 0.5393***
(4.71) (3.74) (2.78) (4.32) (1.95) (0.21) (-4.81) (4.35) (2.76) (-4.81) (4.83) (5.62)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.0505 0.7935 0.0612 0.0564 0.2106 0.7009 0.7235 0.0795 0.6443 0.0169 0.5319 0.6727

D. Non-Linearities in Inattentive versus Hyperactive-
Impulsive Symptoms

Given the absence of non-linearities in the relationship between ADHD symptoms and fi-
nancial outcomes shown in Section 3.6 and Table 7, we examine whether there is also an ab-
sence of non-linearities when considering inattentive symptoms separately from hyperactive-
impulsive symptoms. That is, once we control for inattentive symptoms, do non-linearities
exist for hyperactive-impulsive symptoms, or vice versa?
In Panel A of Table D1, we include a High Inattentive (Hyperactive-Impulsive) indicator
variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of inattentive
(hyperactive-impulsive) symptom scores is in the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. We also include
a Moderate Inattentive (Hyperactive-Impulsive) indicator variable that equals 1 if an indi-
vidual’s percentile rank in the distribution of inattentive (hyperactive-impulsive) symptom
scores is above median and below the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. Similarly in Panel B, we
include indicators for High Inattentive (top 10%), High Hyperactive-Impulsive (top 10%),
Moderate Inattentive (11% to 50%), and Moderate Hyperactive-Impulsive (11% to 50%) in
the same regression. In both panels, we include the p-values from Wald tests of the equality
of the two inattentive coefficient estimates as well as p-values from tests of the equality
of the two hyperactive-impulsive estimates. These results suggest that neither inattentive
nor hyperactive-impulsive symptoms consistently display non-linearities in their relationship
with financial outcomes.
In Panel C, we include indicators for the top and middle terciles of the inattentive
symptom distribution as well as indicators for the top and middle terciles of the hyperactive-
impulsive symptom distribution. We find results very similar to those found in Table 7. Over-
all, when we consider severe and moderate inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms
separately, there is no evidence of non-linearities in either the inattentive or hyperactive-
impulsive symptoms; thus the relationship between inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive
symptoms and financial outcomes appears to exist across the range of symptoms.
67
Table D1: Non-Linearities in Inattentive versus Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms
This table reports potential non-linearities in the relationship between inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms and financial outcomes. The dependent variables indicate whether in
the past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment, or a
debt payment; had an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a payday loan; has
emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether
the individual had money shortages at the end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables are
estimated using ordered logit. All other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure, repossession,
or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is estimated using
the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of observations for
which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. Inattentive symptoms are measured based on the severity of the following
behaviors: “has difficulty concentrating, cannot pay attention for long,” “is easily confused, seems to be in a fog,” and “has a lot of difficulty getting [his/her] mind off certain thoughts.”
Hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are measured based on the severity of the following behaviors: “is impulsive, or acts without thinking” and “is restless or overly active, cannot sit still.” In
Panel A, High Inattentive is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of inattentive symptom scores is in the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate
Inattentive is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of inattentive symptom scores is above median and below the top 5%, and 0 otherwise.
Indicators for High and Moderate Hyperactive-Impulsive symptoms are defined similarly. In Panel B, High Inattentive is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank
in inattentive symptom scores is in the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate Inattentive is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in inattentive symptom scores is
above median and Inattentive the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. Indicators for Hyperactive-Impulsive symptoms are defined similarly. In Panel C, Top Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that
equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in inattentive symptom scores is in the top tercile, and 0 otherwise. Middle Tercile Inattentive is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s
percentile rank in inattentive symptom scores is in the middle tercile, and 0 otherwise. Indicators for Hyperactive-Impulsive symptoms are defined similarly. Each panel shows p-values from
Wald tests of the equality of the two Inattentive estimates as well as p-values from tests of the equality of the two Hyperactive-Impulsive estimates. We include controls for gender, education,
income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard
errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
Panel A: Top 5% Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms
High Inattentive (top 5%) -0.0758 -0.0149 -0.0343 0.0076 -0.0155 0.0476 -0.0090 -0.0949* 0.0029 -0.0360 -0.1548 0.0879
(-0.63) (-0.76) (-1.15) (0.22) (-1.00) (0.98) (-0.35) (-1.93) (0.22) (-1.25) (-1.22) (0.74)
Moderate Inattentive (6% to 50%) 0.1069** 0.0202** -0.0007 -0.0026 -0.0026 -0.0142 -0.0239** -0.0172 0.0125** -0.0033 0.0824 0.1441***
(2.09) (2.44) (-0.06) (-0.20) (-0.42) (-0.75) (-2.02) (-1.01) (2.08) (-0.24) (1.63) (2.83)
68
High Hyperactive-Impulsive (top 5%) 0.2667** 0.0078 0.0801** 0.1485*** 0.0068 -0.0191 -0.0728*** 0.1015** 0.0210 -0.0768*** 0.2163* 0.1201
(2.11) (0.38) (2.34) (3.84) (0.47) (-0.40) (-2.68) (2.24) (1.28) (-2.71) (1.67) (0.96)
Moderate Hyperactive-Impulsive (6% to 50%) 0.2049*** 0.0273*** 0.0351*** 0.0485*** 0.0125** 0.0073 -0.0332*** 0.0167 0.0033 -0.0404*** 0.1871*** 0.1684***
(4.06) (3.32) (3.08) (3.80) (2.06) (0.39) (-2.89) (1.01) (0.56) (-3.03) (3.74) (3.32)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
High vs. Moderate Inattentive Wald test p-value 0.1010 0.0555 0.2342 0.7613 0.3760 0.1771 0.5292 0.1004 0.4563 0.2130 0.0466 0.6123
High vs. Moderate Hyp-Imp Wald test p-value 0.6029 0.3106 0.1701 0.0074 0.6791 0.5611 0.1180 0.0504 0.2546 0.1642 0.8115 0.6817
Panel B: Top 10% Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptoms
High Inattentive (top 10%) 0.1252 0.0120 -0.0104 0.0175 -0.0051 0.0389 -0.0024 -0.0167 0.0199* -0.0182 0.0139 0.1537*
(1.34) (0.76) (-0.44) (0.68) (-0.40) (1.03) (-0.12) (-0.53) (1.81) (-0.77) (0.15) (1.65)
Moderate Inattentive (11% to 50%) 0.0911* 0.0208** -0.0011 -0.0047 -0.0021 -0.0155 -0.0238** -0.0198 0.0116* -0.0004 0.0738 0.1284**
(1.76) (2.48) (-0.09) (-0.36) (-0.34) (-0.82) (-1.99) (-1.15) (1.91) (-0.03) (1.44) (2.49)
High Hyperactive-Impulsive (top 10%) 0.2564*** 0.0062 0.0570** 0.0988*** 0.0028 -0.0254 -0.0694*** 0.0505* 0.0061 -0.0809*** 0.2384*** 0.2376***
(2.85) (0.40) (2.40) (3.87) (0.24) (-0.74) (-3.38) (1.66) (0.54) (-3.61) (2.60) (2.61)
Moderate Hyperactive-Impulsive (11% to 50%) 0.1899*** 0.0282*** 0.0340*** 0.0457*** 0.0130** 0.0078 -0.0318*** 0.0138 0.0026 -0.0369*** 0.1769*** 0.1532***
(3.72) (3.40) (2.96) (3.55) (2.13) (0.41) (-2.75) (0.82) (0.44) (-2.74) (3.50) (2.99)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel C: Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptom Terciles
Top Inattentive ADHD 0.0753 0.0215* -0.0020 0.0145 -0.0066 -0.0159 -0.0442*** -0.0269 -0.0015 -0.0153 0.0812 0.1221*
(1.13) (1.92) (-0.13) (0.84) (-0.91) (-0.62) (-2.77) (-1.22) (-0.20) (-0.84) (1.21) (1.79)
Middle Inattentive ADHD 0.0116 0.0053 -0.0061 0.0085 0.0047 0.0015 -0.0149 -0.0164 -0.0046 -0.0071 0.0315 0.0305
(0.21) (0.62) (-0.51) (0.64) (0.86) (0.07) (-1.12) (-0.90) (-0.73) (-0.47) (0.56) (0.54)
Top Tercile Hyperactive-Impulsive 0.3036*** 0.0296*** 0.0496*** 0.0681*** 0.0138* 0.0235 -0.0345** 0.0414* 0.0180** -0.0717*** 0.2417*** 0.2711***
(4.64) (2.82) (3.29) (4.18) (1.96) (0.94) (-2.27) (1.96) (2.55) (-4.15) (3.73) (4.05)
Middle Tercile Hyperactive-Impulsive 0.1760*** 0.0295*** 0.0252** 0.0365*** 0.0102* 0.0020 -0.0290** 0.0369** 0.0153** -0.0359** 0.1696*** 0.1896***
(3.18) (3.53) (2.14) (2.81) (1.88) (0.10) (-2.21) (2.02) (2.49) (-2.40) (3.05) (3.41)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
E. Non-Linearities Controlling for Treatment
Since those with more severe ADHD symptoms (i.e., in the top 5% or top 10% of our sample)

are likely to have significantly higher rates of treatment, it is possible that the absence of
non-linearities observed in Table 7 is due to those individuals receiving more consistent
treatment. To examine whether this might be the case, we replicate the results in Table 7
controlling for childhood treatment, young adulthood treatment, and current treatment in
Tables E1, E2, and E3, respectively.
We find that after controlling for treatment, the results in these three tables remain
qualitatively similar to those reported in Table 7. In Panels A and B of Tables E1, E2, and
E3, Wald tests generally show that the coefficient estimates for the “high” ADHD symptom
indicator are not significantly larger in magnitude than that of the “moderate” ADHD
symptom indicator. The results in Panel C of Tables E1, E2, and E3 are similar to those in
Table 7. We find that the estimates for both the top and middle ADHD symptom tercile
indicators are significant and that the magnitudes for the estimates for the top ADHD tercile
tend to be significantly larger. Thus we find that accounting for the higher rates of treatment
among those with more severe ADHD symptoms does not account for the absence of non-
linearities; the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes continues to
exist across the range of ADHD symptoms.
69
Table E1: Non-Linearities Controlling for Childhood Treatment
This table reports potential non-linearities in the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes controlling for childhood treatment. The dependent variables indicate whether
in the past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment,
or a debt payment; had an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a payday
loan; has emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and
whether the individual had money shortages at the end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent
variables are estimated using ordered logit. All other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure,
repossession, or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is
estimated using the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of
observations for which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. All models control for Childhood Treatment, the average
response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Does [Child’s First Name] regularly take any medicines or prescription drugs to help control [his/her] activity level or behavior?” posed
to mothers with children between the ages of 4 and 14. In Panel A, High ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom
scores is in the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is above median
and below the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. In Panel B, High ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the top 10%, and 0
otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is above median and below the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. In
Panel C, Top Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the top tercile, and 0 otherwise. Middle Tercile ADHD is an
indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the middle tercile, and 0 otherwise. Each panel shows p-values from Wald tests of the equality
of the two coefficient estimates presented for each regression. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race,
age, and marital status in all models. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the
10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
High ADHD (top 5%) 0.0739 -0.0119 0.0188 0.1102*** -0.0149 0.0061 -0.0532** -0.0145 0.0091 -0.0327 -0.0027 0.2155*
70
(0.66) (-0.68) (0.68) (3.09) (-1.14) (0.14) (-2.23) (-0.35) (0.63) (-1.25) (-0.02) (1.91)
Moderate ADHD (6% to 50%) 0.2432*** 0.0383*** 0.0282*** 0.0399*** 0.0060 -0.0003 -0.0402*** 0.0098 0.0121** -0.0363*** 0.1987*** 0.2515***
(5.38) (5.36) (2.75) (3.44) (1.12) (-0.02) (-3.80) (0.66) (2.22) (-2.99) (4.48) (5.47)
Childhood Treatment 0.3659 0.0504 0.0456 -0.0072 -0.0092 -0.0629 -0.1307** -0.0102 0.0159 -0.1676** 0.4597* 0.0253
(1.43) (1.10) (0.65) (-0.09) (-0.31) (-0.53) (-2.18) (-0.10) (0.55) (-2.46) (1.80) (0.10)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.1164 0.0035 0.7308 0.0451 0.0980 0.8779 0.5667 0.5584 0.8218 0.8862 0.0707 0.7411
High ADHD (top 10%) 0.2129** 0.0122 0.0354* 0.0777*** -0.0023 0.0060 -0.0515*** 0.0235 0.0214** -0.0562*** 0.1228 0.3191***
(2.56) (0.90) (1.75) (3.17) (-0.22) (0.19) (-2.97) (0.80) (1.98) (-2.72) (1.55) (3.71)
Moderate ADHD (11% to 50%) 0.2374*** 0.0391*** 0.0267** 0.0385*** 0.0060 -0.0008 -0.0393*** 0.0071 0.0106* -0.0331*** 0.1979*** 0.2395***
(5.17) (5.35) (2.56) (3.26) (1.10) (-0.04) (-3.64) (0.47) (1.92) (-2.69) (4.36) (5.14)
Childhood Treatment 0.2858 0.0444 0.0310 -0.0013 -0.0143 -0.0655 -0.1274** -0.0377 0.0040 -0.1440** 0.4062 -0.0694
(1.10) (0.95) (0.43) (-0.02) (-0.49) (-0.54) (-2.17) (-0.35) (0.14) (-2.10) (1.59) (-0.26)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.7590 0.0479 0.6656 0.1057 0.4149 0.8287 0.4546 0.5759 0.2949 0.2404 0.3275 0.3345
Top Tercile ADHD 0.3304*** 0.0488*** 0.0356*** 0.0703*** 0.0080 0.0018 -0.0622*** 0.0059 0.0174*** -0.0642*** 0.2630*** 0.3265***
(5.92) (5.63) (2.76) (4.76) (1.21) (0.08) (-4.74) (0.31) (2.61) (-4.28) (4.71) (5.70)
(2.87) (5.05) (1.07) (1.81) (1.88) (0.31) (-2.46) (1.18) (1.84) (-1.78) (3.15) (3.08)
Childhood Treatment 0.1907 0.0194 0.0318 0.0116 -0.0204 -0.0577 -0.1239** -0.0103 0.0117 -0.1403** 0.3085 -0.0458
(0.76) (0.44) (0.44) (0.14) (-0.70) (-0.50) (-2.16) (-0.10) (0.42) (-2.13) (1.22) (-0.18)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.0006 0.2649 0.0640 0.0011 0.7239 0.8504 0.0082 0.4485 0.3134 0.0053 0.0618 0.0022

Table E2: Non-Linearities Controlling for Young Adulthood (YA) Treatment
This table reports potential non-linearities in the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes controlling for young adulthood treatment. The dependent variables indicate
whether in the past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill
payment, or a debt payment; had an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a
payday loan; has emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money;
and whether the individual had money shortages at the end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent
variables are estimated using ordered logit. All other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure,
repossession, or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is
estimated using the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of
observations for which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. All models control for Young Adulthood Treatment, the average
response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Do you regularly take any medicine or prescription drugs to help control your activity level or behavior?” asked to young adults 15 years or
older. In Panel A, High ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is in the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate
ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is above median and below the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. In Panel
B, High ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator variable
that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is above median and below the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. In Panel C, Top Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable
that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the top tercile, and 0 otherwise. Middle Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s
percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the middle tercile, and 0 otherwise. Each panel shows p-values from Wald tests of the equality of the two coefficient estimates presented for each
regression. We include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. Coefficient
estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
High ADHD (top 5%) 0.0388 -0.0132 0.0165 0.0965*** -0.0192 0.0045 -0.0600*** -0.0218 0.0066 -0.0457* -0.0323 0.1451
(0.35) (-0.79) (0.57) (2.74) (-1.47) (0.11) (-2.64) (-0.54) (0.48) (-1.83) (-0.28) (1.28)
71
Moderate ADHD (6% to 50%) 0.2351*** 0.0377*** 0.0269*** 0.0368*** 0.0051 -0.0000 -0.0408*** 0.0086 0.0116** -0.0377*** 0.1922*** 0.2388***
(5.24) (5.29) (2.64) (3.19) (0.94) (-0.00) (-3.87) (0.58) (2.12) (-3.13) (4.35) (5.24)
YA Treatment 1.5208*** 0.1480*** 0.2210*** 0.3551*** 0.0883** -0.1349 -0.1851*** 0.1058 0.0869** -0.1791*** 1.4965*** 1.3547***
(5.45) (3.24) (3.11) (4.23) (2.35) (-1.33) (-3.24) (1.13) (2.57) (-2.72) (5.30) (4.73)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.0700 0.0020 0.7140 0.0865 0.0534 0.9123 0.3809 0.4530 0.7073 0.7417 0.0452 0.3955
High ADHD (top 10%) 0.1848** 0.0110 0.0321 0.0674*** -0.0061 0.0041 -0.0569*** 0.0158 0.0186* -0.0639*** 0.1008 0.2619***
(2.29) (0.86) (1.58) (2.84) (-0.59) (0.13) (-3.37) (0.56) (1.79) (-3.27) (1.29) (3.18)
Moderate ADHD (11% to 50%) 0.2287*** 0.0384*** 0.0254** 0.0359*** 0.0052 -0.0003 -0.0395*** 0.0059 0.0099* -0.0337*** 0.1912*** 0.2276***
(5.01) (5.26) (2.44) (3.06) (0.96) (-0.02) (-3.67) (0.39) (1.80) (-2.75) (4.22) (4.90)
YA Treatment 1.4847*** 0.1444*** 0.2177*** 0.3568*** 0.0873** -0.1353 -0.1840*** 0.0961 0.0825** -0.1701*** 1.4664*** 1.3156***
(5.30) (3.16) (3.06) (4.22) (2.32) (-1.33) (-3.23) (1.01) (2.43) (-2.59) (5.21) (4.61)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.5729 0.0320 0.7417 0.1820 0.2637 0.8842 0.2763 0.7251 0.3857 0.1088 0.2359 0.6689
Top Tercile ADHD 0.3075*** 0.0467*** 0.0328** 0.0644*** 0.0058 0.0026 -0.0631*** 0.0036 0.0161** -0.0663*** 0.2439*** 0.2969***
(5.58) (5.42) (2.55) (4.42) (0.88) (0.12) (-4.85) (0.19) (2.41) (-4.49) (4.40) (5.26)
(2.81) (5.03) (1.01) (1.73) (1.84) (0.33) (-2.45) (1.15) (1.83) (-1.76) (3.13) (3.03)
YA Treatment 1.4206*** 0.1327*** 0.2144*** 0.3498*** 0.0848** -0.1339 -0.1784*** 0.1030 0.0838** -0.1631** 1.4082*** 1.2920***
(5.07) (2.91) (3.02) (4.17) (2.25) (-1.32) (-3.13) (1.09) (2.48) (-2.49) (5.03) (4.54)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.0019 0.3651 0.0905 0.0029 0.5232 0.8643 0.0060 0.3819 0.4126 0.0027 0.1208 0.0089

Table E3: Non-Linearities Controlling for Current Treatment
This table reports potential non-linearities in the relationship between ADHD symptoms and financial outcomes controlling for current treatment. The dependent variables indicate whether in
the past 12 months, an individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment, or a
debt payment; had an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a payday loan; has
emergency funds that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether
the individual had money shortages at the end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables are
estimated using ordered logit. All other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure, repossession,
or bankruptcy are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is estimated using
the subsample where an individual owns a credit card. All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of observations for
which assets are non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. All models control for Current Treatment, which equals 1 in years an individual
answers “yes” to the above question regarding medication posed to young adults, and equals 0 in years an individual answers “no” in the 2010, 2012, and 2014 survey waves. In Panel A, High
ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is in the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator
variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores is above median and below the top 5%, and 0 otherwise. In Panel B, High ADHD is an
indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. Moderate ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an
individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is above median and below the top 10%, and 0 otherwise. In Panel C, Top Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an
individual’s percentile rank in ADHD symptom scores is in the top tercile, and 0 otherwise. Middle Tercile ADHD is an indicator variable that equals 1 if an individual’s percentile rank in
ADHD symptom scores is in the middle tercile, and 0 otherwise. Each panel shows p-values from Wald tests of the equality of the two coefficient estimates presented for each regression. We
include controls for gender, education, income, net worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. Coefficient estimates and
t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
High ADHD (top 5%) 0.0890 -0.0085 0.0221 0.1063*** -0.0168 0.0010 -0.0699*** -0.0176 0.0096 -0.0539** 0.0300 0.1934*
(0.81) (-0.52) (0.77) (3.08) (-1.30) (0.02) (-3.10) (-0.43) (0.71) (-2.17) (0.27) (1.74)
72
Moderate ADHD (6% to 50%) 0.2495*** 0.0391*** 0.0279*** 0.0387*** 0.0057 -0.0011 -0.0426*** 0.0102 0.0125** -0.0395*** 0.2073*** 0.2501***
(5.58) (5.48) (2.74) (3.36) (1.06) (-0.06) (-4.04) (0.69) (2.30) (-3.29) (4.70) (5.50)
Current Treatment 0.5499*** 0.0602*** 0.0868*** 0.1091*** 0.0206 -0.0511 -0.0317 0.0037 0.0319*** -0.0334 0.3877*** 0.5051***
(5.98) (3.56) (3.61) (4.05) (1.58) (-1.41) (-1.64) (0.13) (2.70) (-1.53) (4.28) (5.26)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.1315 0.0035 0.8396 0.0486 0.0716 0.9597 0.2093 0.4942 0.8274 0.5513 0.1094 0.6021
High ADHD (top 10%) 0.2230*** 0.0145 0.0354* 0.0737*** -0.0045 0.0012 -0.0639*** 0.0194 0.0208** -0.0696*** 0.1465* 0.2976***
(2.81) (1.15) (1.75) (3.16) (-0.43) (0.04) (-3.81) (0.69) (2.03) (-3.60) (1.90) (3.66)
Moderate ADHD (11% to 50%) 0.2413*** 0.0396*** 0.0263** 0.0377*** 0.0058 -0.0013 -0.0410*** 0.0073 0.0108* -0.0352*** 0.2040*** 0.2371***
(5.29) (5.42) (2.53) (3.20) (1.06) (-0.07) (-3.80) (0.48) (1.96) (-2.87) (4.51) (5.11)
(5.91) (3.53) (3.57) (4.02) (1.57) (-1.41) (-1.63) (0.06) (2.64) (-1.46) (4.22) (5.21)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.8124 0.0472 0.6539 0.1219 0.3109 0.9354 0.1509 0.6665 0.3099 0.0659 0.4463 0.4460
Top Tercile ADHD 0.3308*** 0.0489*** 0.0351*** 0.0686*** 0.0069 0.0010 -0.0669*** 0.0062 0.0174*** -0.0698*** 0.2695*** 0.3161***
(6.05) (5.69) (2.74) (4.73) (1.06) (0.05) (-5.15) (0.33) (2.65) (-4.75) (4.89) (5.64)
(2.86) (5.02) (1.04) (1.78) (1.88) (0.33) (-2.49) (1.18) (1.82) (-1.83) (3.16) (3.12)
(5.80) (3.40) (3.54) (3.98) (1.54) (-1.41) (-1.59) (0.11) (2.66) (-1.41) (4.13) (5.17)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Wald test p-value 0.0004 0.2477 0.0634 0.0012 0.6018 0.8013 0.0024 0.4489 0.2961 0.0014 0.0438 0.0037

F. ADHD Symptoms, Anxiety, and Depression
The NLSY79 CYA contains the Behavior Problems Index (BPI) assessments, administered

to the mothers of all children between the ages of 4 and 14; it contains a subscale measuring
anxiety/depression (Peterson and Zill, 1986). We use this measure as a proxy for the severity
of anxiety/depression symptoms for individuals in our sample.
Mothers are asked whether their child has exhibited the five following behaviors in the
previous three months: (1) “has sudden changes in mood;” (2) “complains no one loves
[him/her];” (3) “is too fearful or anxious;” (4) “feels worthless or inferior;” and (5) “is
unhappy, sad, or depressed.” The mother indicates how often each behavior applies to their
child on a scale of 1 (often true), 2 (sometimes true), and 3 (not true). We reverse the scores
so that higher values correspond to more severe anxiety/depression symptoms. Similar to
our ADHD symptom score, we take the average of the sum of the five scores for each survey
wave from 1986 to 2008, which results in a total raw score that ranges from 5 to 15. We
then assign individuals a percentile rank based on their raw scores and use this percentile
measure in the analysis below. The correlation between ADHD symptom percentile and
anxiety/depression symptom percentile is 0.58 and is statistically significant at the 1% level.
In Panel A of Table F1 below, we find that anxiety/depression symptoms are positively
associated with difficulty paying bills, late bill payment, and having an account in collection.
More severe anxiety/depression symptoms are also related to higher leverage, payday loans,
having no emergency funds, having to delay buying necessities, and money shortages at
month end.
In Panel B, in addition to the anxiety/depression symptom percentile, we include a
variable for ADHD symptom percentile, childhood treatment, and the interaction between
ADHD symptom percentile and childhood treatment. The statistical significance and mag-
nitude of the coefficient estimates for ADHD symptom percentile, childhood treatment, and
their interaction are similar to those in Table 8. However, the coefficient estimates for
anxiety/depression symptom percentile are largely insignificant after controlling for these
variables. Results in Panels B and C are similar.
73
Table F1: ADHD Symptoms, Anxiety, and Depression
This table reports the effect of ADHD symptoms and treatment on financial outcomes, controlling for anxiety/depression. The dependent variables indicate whether in the past 12 months, an
individual has had difficulty paying their bills, on a scale of 1 (no difficulty at all) to 5 (a great deal of difficulty); has been more than 60 days late on a bill payment, or a debt payment; had
an account in collection, experienced foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy; leverage (debt/assets); owned a credit card; had credit card debt; took out a payday loan; has emergency funds
that cover 3 months of expenses; how often, on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (all the time), that the individual had to delay buying necessities due to lack of money; and whether the individual had
money shortages at the end of the month, on a scale of 1 (more than enough money left) to 4 (not enough to make ends meet). Models with ordinal dependent variables are estimated using
ordered logit. All other models with binary dependent variables are estimated using OLS. Models with late debt payment, accounts in collection, and foreclosure, repossession, or bankruptcy
are estimated using the subsample with debt outstanding in the current or prior survey wave. Column (7), where credit card debt is the dependent variable, is estimated using the subsample
where an individual owns a credit card. All other models are estimated using the full sample. Leverage (debt/assets) is only available for the subsample of observations for which assets are
non-zero. The emergency savings variable is only available in the 2012 and 2014 survey waves. ADHD symptoms is an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of ADHD symptom scores,
ranging from 0 to 1. In all models, we control for anxiety/depression, an individual’s percentile rank in the distribution of anxiety/depression symptom scores, ranging from 0 to 1. In Panel A,
we include a Childhood Treatment variable that is the average response (“yes” = 1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Does [Child’s First Name] regularly take any medicines or prescription drugs
to help control [his/her] activity level or behavior?” posed to mothers with children between the ages of 4 and 14. In Panel B, Young Adulthood Treatment is the average response (“yes” =
1 and “no” = 0) to the question “Do you regularly take any medicine or prescription drugs to help control your activity level or behavior?” asked to young adults 15 years or older. In Panel
C, Current Treatment equals 1 in years an individual answers “yes” to the above question regarding medication posed to young adults, and equals 0 in years an individual answers “no” in
the 2010, 2012, and 2014 survey waves; that is, the Current Treatment variable is measured concurrently with the dependent variable. We include controls for gender, education, income, net
worth, cognitive ability, and risk tolerance, as well as fixed effects for race, age, and marital status in all models. Coefficient estimates and t-statistics are reported. All standard errors are
clustered at the individual level. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels, respectively.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)
Panel A: Anxiety/Depression
Anxiety/Depression symptoms (percentile) 0.3262*** 0.0257** 0.0283 0.0665*** 0.0056 0.0697** -0.0331 -0.0382 0.0289*** -0.0475** 0.2624*** 0.3615***
(4.24) (2.12) (1.63) (3.27) (0.63) (2.09) (-1.46) (-1.45) (3.16) (-2.27) (3.32) (4.65)
Control Variables and FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel B: Childhood Treatment Controlling for Anxiety/Depression
74
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.4758*** 0.0852*** 0.0637*** 0.0933*** 0.0081 0.0069 -0.1069*** 0.0897*** 0.0124 -0.1251*** 0.3622*** 0.4819***
(4.73) (5.45) (2.79) (3.62) (0.70) (0.16) (-3.53) (2.62) (1.03) (-4.66) (3.53) (4.71)
Childhood Treatment 2.2231* 0.4387** -0.0011 -0.1740 -0.0858 0.0800 -0.6959* -0.0896 -0.1021 -0.4628 0.9015 1.7944
(1.86) (2.19) (-0.00) (-0.54) (-1.20) (0.16) (-1.96) (-0.21) (-1.02) (-1.63) (0.86) (1.47)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -2.4662* -0.5114** 0.0281 0.2095 0.0725 -0.1026 0.6751* 0.0656 0.1259 0.3999 -0.7862 -2.2899
× Childhood Treatment (-1.81) (-2.34) (0.09) (0.56) (0.79) (-0.17) (1.69) (0.14) (1.04) (1.22) (-0.65) (-1.62)
Anxiety/Depression symptoms (percentile) 0.0754 -0.0181 -0.0061 0.0165 0.0018 0.0668* 0.0242 -0.0830*** 0.0213* 0.0237 0.0558 0.1200
(0.81) (-1.22) (-0.29) (0.70) (0.18) (1.67) (0.89) (-2.63) (1.94) (0.94) (0.57) (1.28)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel C: Young Adulthood (YA) Treatment Controlling for Anxiety/Depression
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.5292*** 0.0889*** 0.0781*** 0.0899*** 0.0147 -0.0034 -0.1017*** 0.1012*** 0.0187 -0.1319*** 0.4087*** 0.4874***
(5.26) (5.66) (3.33) (3.43) (1.27) (-0.08) (-3.29) (2.84) (1.55) (-4.82) (3.95) (4.73)
YA Treatment 3.3636*** 0.3424*** 0.4915*** 0.3561** 0.2313*** -0.1492 -0.0517 0.3449* 0.2089*** -0.2679* 2.7441*** 2.5509***
(5.71) (3.42) (3.17) (2.23) (2.74) (-0.64) (-0.35) (1.82) (2.62) (-1.68) (4.44) (3.76)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -3.2690*** -0.3551** -0.5255** -0.0185 -0.2781** 0.2806 -0.1180 -0.4798 -0.2162** 0.1827 -2.2631** -2.1822**
× YA Treatment (-3.78) (-2.40) (-2.18) (-0.07) (-2.26) (0.66) (-0.46) (-1.43) (-1.97) (0.79) (-2.55) (-2.27)
Anxiety/Depression symptoms (percentile) 0.0390 -0.0220 -0.0127 0.0093 -0.0013 0.0681* 0.0250 -0.0879*** 0.0191* 0.0269 0.0196 0.0848
(0.42) (-1.49) (-0.61) (0.39) (-0.13) (1.70) (0.92) (-2.77) (1.74) (1.06) (0.20) (0.90)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674
Panel D: Current Treatment Controlling for Anxiety/Depression
ADHD symptoms (percentile) 0.4820*** 0.0877*** 0.0725*** 0.0922*** 0.0106 0.0090 -0.1026*** 0.1032*** 0.0171 -0.1373*** 0.4024*** 0.4524***
(4.86) (5.63) (3.18) (3.63) (0.93) (0.21) (-3.40) (3.00) (1.45) (-5.14) (3.96) (4.47)
Current Treatment 0.7426*** 0.1187*** 0.1502*** 0.0862 0.0482** 0.0000 0.0286 0.1038* 0.0626** -0.0820* 0.6706*** 0.5517***
(3.88) (3.30) (3.25) (1.63) (1.99) (0.00) (0.58) (1.92) (2.46) (-1.76) (3.64) (2.74)
ADHD symptoms (percentile) -0.3976 -0.1133** -0.1277* 0.0408 -0.0560 -0.0482 -0.0877 -0.2109** -0.0598 0.0962 -0.5576* -0.1296
× Current Treatment (-1.25) (-1.97) (-1.65) (0.43) (-1.42) (-0.33) (-0.98) (-2.11) (-1.52) (1.24) (-1.89) (-0.39)
Anxiety/Depression symptoms (percentile) 0.0551 -0.0216 -0.0112 0.0122 0.0002 0.0682* 0.0221 -0.0870*** 0.0202* 0.0262 0.0387 0.1009
(0.59) (-1.45) (-0.54) (0.52) (0.02) (1.70) (0.81) (-2.75) (1.85) (1.03) (0.39) (1.07)
Observations 11674 11674 6861 6861 6861 7681 11674 4922 11674 8115 11674 11674

G. Conditional Marginal Effects of Interactions in Or-
dered Logit Models

Each set of figures below shows conditional marginal effects of one of the three treatment
variables (childhood treatment, young adulthood treatment, current treatment) on the out-
come categories of one of the three ordinal dependent variables (difficulty paying bills, delay
buying necessities, and money shortages at month end) over the range of ADHD symptoms.
Each set of figures contains one figure for each outcome category of the ordinal dependent
variable of interest. Marginal effects are estimated at the mean and are shown with a 95%
confidence interval.
For figures that show the marginal effects of either childhood treatment or young adult-
hood treatment, two continuous variables, on outcomes, we show the marginal effects at four
levels of treatment: zero (the minimum value), the mean, two standard deviations above
the mean, and one (the maximum value). For figures that show the marginal effects of
current treatment, an indicator variable, on outcomes, we show the conditional marginal
effects for those currently receiving treatment (current treatment = 1) and for those who do
not currently receive treatment (current treatment = 0). Since we plot the marginal effects
of one independent variable of interest (i.e., treatment) at various values across the range
of a second independent variable (i.e., ADHD symptom percentile), the interaction effect is
significant if the marginal effects at different values of treatment (i.e., each of the lines in a
figure) are significantly different from each other, with a 95% confidence interval, for some
range of ADHD symptoms.
75
Figure G1: Conditional Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment
on Difficulty Paying Bills
The figures below show the conditional marginal effects estimated at the mean with a 95% confidence
interval of childhood treatment on the probability of each outcome category for difficulty paying bills
over the range of ADHD symptoms. Each of the lines in each figure show marginal effects estimated

at four different levels of childhood treatment: zero (the minimum value, blue line), the mean (maroon
line), two standard deviations above the mean (green line), and one (the maximum value, orange line).
(a) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment (b) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment
on Pr(No Difficulty at All (1)) on Pr(A Little Difficulty (2))
(c) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment (d) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment
on Pr(Some Difficulty (3)) on Pr(Quite a Bit of Difficulty (4))
76
(e) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment
on Pr(A Great Deal of Difficulty (5))
on Delay Buying Necessities
interval of childhood treatment on the probability of each outcome category for delay buying necessities
over the range of ADHD symptoms. Each of the lines in each figure show marginal effects estimated
at four different levels of childhood treatment: zero (the minimum value, blue line), the mean (maroon

line), two standard deviations above the mean (green line), and one (the maximum value, orange line).
(a) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment (b) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment
on Pr(Never (1)) on Pr(Rarely (2))
on Pr(Occasionally (3)) on Pr(Frequently (4))
(e) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment

on Pr(All the Time (5))
77
on Money Left at Month End

interval of childhood treatment on the probability of each outcome category for money shortages at
month end over the range of ADHD symptoms. Each of the lines in each figure show marginal effects
estimated at four different levels of childhood treatment: zero (the minimum value, blue line), the
mean (maroon line), two standard deviations above the mean (green line), and one (the maximum
value, orange line).
(a) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment

(b) Marginal Effects of Childhood Treatment
on Pr(More Than Enough Money Left Over
on Pr(Some Money Left Over (2))
(1))
on Pr(Just Enough to Make Ends Meet (3)) on Pr(Not Enough to Make Ends Meet (4))
78
Figure G4: Conditional Marginal Effects of Young Adulthood Treatment
The figures below show the conditional marginal effects estimated at the mean with a 95%
confidence interval of young adulthood treatment on the probability of each outcome cat-
egory for difficulty paying bills over the range of ADHD symptoms. Each of the lines

in each figure show marginal effects estimated at four different levels of young adult-
hood treatment: zero (the minimum value, blue line), the mean (maroon line), two stan-
dard deviations above the mean (green line), and one (the maximum value, orange line).
(a) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on (b) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on Pr(A

Pr(No Difficulty at All (1)) Little Difficulty (2))
(c) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on (d) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on

Pr(Some Difficulty (3)) Pr(Quite a Bit of Difficulty (4))
79
(e) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on Pr(A
The figures below show the conditional marginal effects estimated at the mean with a 95%
confidence interval of young adulthood treatment on the probability of each outcome cat-
egory for delay buying necessities over the range of ADHD symptoms. Each of the
lines in each figure show marginal effects estimated at four different levels of young adult-

hood treatment: zero (the minimum value, blue line), the mean (maroon line), two stan-
dard deviations above the mean (green line), and one (the maximum value, orange line).
(a) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on (b) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on

Pr(Never (1)) Pr(Rarely (2))

Pr(Occasionally (3)) Pr(Frequently (4))
(e) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on

80
Pr(All the Time (5))

interval of young adulthood treatment on the probability of each outcome category for money shortages
at month end over the range of ADHD symptoms. Each of the lines in each figure show marginal effects
estimated at four different levels of young adulthood treatment: zero (the minimum value, blue line),
the mean (maroon line), two standard deviations above the mean (green line), and one (the maximum
value, orange line).
(a) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on (b) Marginal Effects of YA Treatment on

Pr(More Than Enough Money Left Over (1)) Pr(Some Money Left Over (2))

Pr(Just Enough to Make Ends Meet (3)) Pr(Not Enough to Make Ends Meet (4))
81
Figure G7: Conditional Marginal Effects of Current Treatment
interval of current treatment on the probability of each outcome category for difficulty paying bills over
the range of ADHD symptoms. The two lines in each figure show the marginal effects of not currently
receiving treatment (blue line) relative to the marginal effects of currently receiving treatment (maroon

line) on an outcome category over the range of ADHD symptoms.
(a) Marginal Effects of Current Treatment on (b) Marginal Effects of Current Treatment on
Pr(No Difficulty at All (1)) Pr(A Little Difficulty (2))
(c) Marginal Effects of Current Treatment on (d) Marginal Effects of Current Treatment on
Pr(Some Difficulty (3)) Pr(Quite a Bit of Difficulty (4))
(e) Marginal Effects of Current Treatment on

Pr(A Great Deal of Difficulty (5))
82
interval for current treatment on the probability of each outcome category for delay buying necessities
over the range of ADHD symptoms. The two lines in each figure show the marginal effects of not
currently receiving treatment (blue line) relative to the marginal effects of currently receiving treatment

(maroon line) on an outcome category over the range of ADHD symptoms.
Pr(Never (1)) Pr(Rarely (2))
Pr(Occasionally (3)) Pr(Frequently (4))
(e) Marginal Effects of Current Treatment on

Pr(All the Time (5))
83

interval for current treatment on the probability of each outcome category for money shortages at
month end over the range of ADHD symptoms. The two lines in each figure show the marginal effects
of not currently receiving treatment (blue line) relative to the marginal effects of currently receiving
treatment (maroon line) on an outcome category over the range of ADHD symptoms.
Pr(More Than Enough Money Left Over (1)) Pr(Some Money Left Over (2))
Pr(Just Enough to Make Ends Meet (3)) Pr(Not Enough to Make Ends Meet (4))
84

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ADHD Symptoms and Financial Distress

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April 14, 2020

We examine the effect of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on individual-

JEL classifications: D10, D14, G41

Keywords: Household finance, ADHD, Financial decision making

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We examine the effect of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on individual-

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delinquency (Nagin and Tremblay, 1999; Fletcher and Wolfe, 2009).

ADHD is a neurobehavioral disorder characterized by inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and

We study the effect of childhood ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes in adulthood

from early childhood through to adulthood.1 We construct a measure of ADHD symptom

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their financial outcomes.

not having enough to make ends meet.

abilities including the Big-Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraver-

for unobserved family-level hereditary and environmental predictors of ADHD symptoms

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causal. While we control for observable individual-level differences as well as family-level

we cannot account for using the NLSY79 CYA data.

tentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). We

explore the relative effects of inattentive versus hyperactive-impulsive symptoms of ADHD

financial outcomes in adulthood.

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affect financial outcomes in adulthood.

the probability of financial distress and lower financial well-being in adulthood.

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examine the long-term effects of childhood ADHD symptoms on a comprehensive set of

financial outcomes in adulthood.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 1, we discuss ADHD

in Section 2 and present our results in Section 3. We conclude in Section 4.

1. ADHD Symptoms and Financial Outcomes

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ADHD symptoms include impairment of sustained motivation, attention, response inhi-

disorganization, forgetfulness, unreliability, as well as difficulty in planning, task completion,

to secure debt through traditional avenues.

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1.1 Measuring ADHD Symptoms

questions similar to those outlined by the American Psychiatric Association to diagnose

interpretation of the estimated effect of ADHD symptoms on financial outcomes.2

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Our measure of ADHD symptom severity avoids these measurement issues.

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and 23.69% of the sample is married.

In addition to demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, we control for risk tol-

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vehicle, 48.76% have vehicle debt.

waves. On a scale of 1 (never), 2 (rarely), 3 (occasionally), 4 (frequently), and 5 (all the

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3.1 ADHD Symptoms and Financial Distress

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for each outcome category in Appendix B.

As predicted, in column (1) of Table 2 there is a positive relationship between child-

interpreted directly. While we can use an odds-ratio interpretation of the coefficients, we

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college degree on difficulty paying bills.

in income on the probability of late bill payment.

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probability of late debt payment.

severity, an increase of 15.0% relative to the average frequency of having an account in

account in collection. After controlling for individual characteristics, there is no significant

relationship between ADHD symptoms and the probability of foreclosure, repossession, or