EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Effects of Financial Education in the Workplace: Evidence from a Survey of Employers

Patrick Bayer, B. Douglas Bernheim and John Scholz

Working Papers from Stanford University, Department of Economics

Abstract: June 1996

We examine the effects of education on financial decision-making skills by identifying an interesting source of variation in pertinent training. During the 1990s, an increasing number of individuals were exposed to programs of financial education provided by their employers. If, as some have argued, low saving frequently results from a failure to appreciate economic vulnerabilities, then education of this form could prove to have a powerful effect on rates of behavior. The current paper undertakes an analysis of these programs using a previously unexploited survey of employers. We find that both participation in and contributions to voluntary savings plans are significantly higher when employers offer retirement seminars. The effect is typically much stronger for non-highly compensated employees than for highly compensated employees. The frequency of seminars emerges as a particularly important correlate of behavior. We are unable to detect any effects of written materials, such as newsletters and summary plan descriptions, regardless of frequency. We also present evidence on other determinants of plan activity.

Date: 1996-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (61)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-econ.stanford.edu/faculty/workp/swp96011.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www-econ.stanford.edu/faculty/workp/swp96011.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www-econ.stanford.edu/faculty/workp/swp96011.pdf [307 Temporary Redirect]--> https://economics.stanford.edu//faculty/workp/swp96011.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: THE EFFECTS OF FINANCIAL EDUCATION IN THE WORKPLACE: EVIDENCE FROM A SURVEY OF EMPLOYERS (2009) Downloads
Working Paper: The Effects of Financial Education in the Workplace: Evidence from a Survey of Employers (1996) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wop:stanec:96011

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Stanford University, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Krichel ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:wop:stanec:96011