Save & Invest

Abstract: American women tend to be less financially literate than men, which is consistent with a household division of labor in which men manage finances. However, women also tend to outlive their husbands, so they will eventually need to take over this task. Using a new survey of older couples, I find that women acquire financial literacy as they approach widowhood. At an estimated increase of 0.04 standard deviations per year approaching widowhood, 80 percent of women in the sample would catch up with their husbands prior to the expected onset of widowhood.

This project examines the impact of employer-provided financial education for newly hired workers on contributions to voluntary retirement savings plans. Using administrative data from five large employers, the researchers assess the impact of information and delivery methods on the choice to participate in the plans and the deferral amount selected. The researchers collected additional data from one employer-partner covering the two years before and after their automatic enrollment policy was implemented.

We present new experimental evidence on heterogeneity in the formation of inflation expectations and relate the variation to economic literacy and demographics. The experimental design allows us to investigate two channels through which expectations-formation may vary across individuals: (1) the choice of information and (2) the use of given information. Subjects who are more economically literate perform better along both dimensions—they choose more-relevant information and make better use of given information.

Household financial planning can be challenging and household members often lack basic financial literacy skills. This paper discusses the potential and pitfalls of one approach to solving these problems—the development and dissemination of financial guidelines simple enough to be explained in graphic form. The discussion is motivated by the history of nutritional guidelines, namely the Food Pyramid and MyPlate.

Based on temporal construal theory, the length of time a person has before they reach retirement age will influence how they react to different types of messages. This theory predicts younger workers prefer more abstract communications compared to older workers who should prefer more concrete information because retirement is a distant goal rather than a proximal one. We also directly test how positive and negative message framing, goal timeframes, concreteness of the material presented and an individuals’ age influences an individual’s retirement savings intentions.

The Social Security Statement is sent annually to each individual over age 25. The Statement contains information regarding the Social Security program, the individual's past covered earnings and contributions, and an estimate of the individual's future retirement benefits. Given the complexity of the Social Security benefit formula, the Statement represents the best and perhaps only estimate of the benefits to which an individual may be entitled. Knowledge of benefits is important, as individuals must plan their own retirement saving around their Social Security benefits.

This report describes several linked empirical studies that examine the activities of public libraries in increasing the financial literacy of their service population. It describes a qualitative field study of librarians’ perceptions of the challenges in offering financial literacy-based information and services, and a parallel study of the perceptions of six “partners” – or outside organizations or individuals - that work with libraries to offer programs and services.

Abstract: American parents, teachers, and policymakers generally express strong support for personal financial education for high school students, despite a need for further research to determine if such education is effective in improving long-term decision-making capabilities. However, research in related fields such as child development and behavioral economics suggests that personal financial learning begins at an early age and encompasses a broad array of general decision-making skills rather than just narrowly financial topics.

Abstract: We study the effects of belief dispersion on stock trading volume. Unlike most of the existing work on the subject, our paper focuses on how household investors' disagreements on macroeconomic variables influence market-wide trading volume. We show that greater belief dispersion among household investors is associated with significantly higher trading volume, even after controlling for the disagreements among professional forecasters.