We experimentally test the impact of expanding access to basic bank accounts in Uganda, Malawi, and Chile. Over two … monthly deposits for them were at the 79th, 91st, and 96th percentiles of baseline savings. Survey data show no clearly … discernible intention-to-treat effects on savings or any downstream outcomes. This suggests that policies merely focused on …

Evidence on the effectiveness of financial education and formal savings account access is lacking, particularly for … shows the education plus account treatment increases bank savings relative to account-only. But survey-measured total … savings shows roughly equal increases across all treatment arms. Earned income also increases in all treatment arms. We find …

Medium- and long-run dynamics undermine the effect of automatic enrollment and default savings-rate auto-escalation on … retirement savings. Our analysis of nine 401(k) plans incorporates the facts that employees frequently leave firms (often before …

We study the introduction of a choice architecture design intended to increase short-term savings among employees at … from each paycheck into a short-term savings account from which withdrawals are possible at any time. We find that … very low: no more than 0.7% of eligible employees ever activated an account. Opt-in access to short-term savings programs …

. Working with Kenyan farmers, we cross-randomize access to a simple savings product with a harvest-time loan. Among farmers … offered a loan, the additional offer of a savings lockbox increased farm investment by 11% and household consumption by 7 …

We examine six alternative plans which might be discussed in an effort to increase consumer savings through the … personal income tax system in the United States. These plans attempt to affect savings through an increase in the real rate of … return either by direct tax cuts on savings or by indexing tax rates against inflation. The paper presents estimates of …

Seeking to reach the unbanked, the United States Postal Savings System provided a federally insured savings alternative …s. However, even during the earliest period, Postal Savings was only a partial substitute for traditional banks, as … locations with banks often still heavily used postal savings …

Substantial evidence suggests that savings behavior may depart from neoclassical optimization. This article examines … the implications of raising the savings rate - whether through social security, retirement plans, or otherwise - for labor … savings behavior. Under one formulation, raising the targeted savings rate has the same effect on labor supply as that of …