Would People Behave Differently If They Better Understood Social Security? Evidence From a Field Experiment

Jeffrey Liebman () and Erzo Luttmer

No 17287, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper presents the results of a field experiment in which a sample of older workers was randomized between a treatment group that was given information about key Social Security provisions and a control group that was not. The experiment was designed to examine whether it is possible to affect individual behavior using a relatively inexpensive informational intervention about the provisions of a public program and to explore the mechanisms underlying the behavior change. We find that our relatively mild intervention (sending an informational brochure and an invitation to a web-tutorial) increased labor force participation one year later by 4 percentage points relative to the control group mean of 74 percent and that this effect is driven by a 7.2 percentage point increase among female subjects. In addition to affecting actual labor supply behavior, the information intervention increased survey measures of the perceived returns to working longer, especially among female respondents.

JEL-codes: C93 D83 H55 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-exp, nep-lab and nep-soc
Note: AG LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Published as Jeffrey B. Liebman & Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2015. "Would People Behave Differently If They Better Understood Social Security? Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 275-99, February.

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