Ep. 34 - How Debt Age Affects Payment Decisions with Alicia Johnson

Two car loans, one tax refund, and a choice most people get wrong. In this episode, Alicia Johnson joins JMR Co-Editor Simon Blanchard to reveal the story behind "First In, First Out? How Debt Age Affects Debt Prepayment Decisions." It started when co-author Rajesh Bagchi caught himself paying down his older loan first, even though the newer one usually saves more. Two teams then discovered they were chasing the same idea. Alicia shares how she and co-authors Daniel Villanova, Julio Sevilla, Mathew Isaac, and Rajesh traced this costly habit to invested effort, and how the review process contributed to the development of the paper’s explanation