Almost 50 million Americans are burdened by the need to repay almost $2 trillion in student loan debt, while at the same time having to save for retirement. This article analyzes the potential impact of the 2022 SECURE 2.0 Act reform which permits employers to match contributions for student...

We undertake an assessment of our two decades of research on financial literacy, building on our empirical research and theoretical work casting financial knowledge as a form of investment in human capital. We also draw on recent data to determine who is the most - and least - financially savvy...

We exploit a panel of city-level data with rich demographic information to estimate the distributional effects of Department of Defense spending and its effects on a range of social outcomes. The income generated by defense spending accrues predominantly to households without a bachelor's...

We investigate how information processing frictions contribute to household suboptimal saving and investment behavior. We find that 60% of open accounts in college 529 savings plans are invested suboptimally due to high expenses and tax inefficiency. Such investments yield an expected loss of 9%...

Older people often express regret about financial decisions made earlier in life that left them susceptible to old-age insecurity. Prior work has explored one outcome, saving regret, or peoples' expressed wish that they had saved more earlier in life. The present paper extends attention to five...

Using a survey with information treatments conducted in the aftermath of SVB's collapse, we study households' perspectives on bank stability, the potential for panic-driven bank runs, and the role of public communication. When informed about SVB's collapse, households become more likely to...

We study life insurance market responses to Covid-19 using unique national administrative data from Israel on purchases and cancellations of life insurance policies, and an internet survey of Americans' life insurance choices, risk attitudes, Covid-19 perceptions, and vaccination behavior. We...

Using repeated large-scale surveys of U.S. households, we study the cryptocurrency investment decisions and motives of households relative to other financial assets. Cryptocurrency holders tend to be young, white, male and more libertarian relative to non-crypto holders. They expect much higher...

We study the psychological costs of financial constraints and their economic consequences. Using a representative survey of U.S. households, we document the prevalence of financial stress in U.S. households and a strong relationship between financial stress and measures of financial constraints....

We combine a customized survey and randomized controlled trial (RCT) to study the effect of higher-order beliefs on U.S. retail investors' portfolio allocations. We find that investors' higher-order beliefs about stock market returns are correlated with but distinct from their first-order...