A Fistful of Dollars: Financial Incentives, Peer Information, and Retirement Savings

Rob Bauer, Inka Eberhardt and Paul Smeets

The Review of Financial Studies, 2022, vol. 35, issue 6, 2981-3020

Abstract: To understand what motivates individuals to look at their pension situation and make adequate savings decisions, we conduct two field experiments with 226,946 and 257,433 pension fund participants. We find peer-information statements do not increase the rate at which individuals check their pension information, but lottery-type financial incentives do. Offering a few large prizes rather than many small prizes is most effective. However, the uptake of pension information does not lead to improved pension knowledge nor to increased self-reported savings three weeks after our intervention.Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

JEL-codes: C93 D83 G51 G53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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