We analyze the behavior of 401(k) plan participants during the first quarter of 2020, when COVID-19 generated historic volatility, large negative returns, and significant unemployment. Only 2.1% of participants invested in TDFs made any changes to their portfolios, with even lower rates of...

Oregon recently launched an automatic-enrollment retirement savings program for private sector workers lacking access to other workplace retirement plans. We analyze participation choices, account balances, and inflow/outflow data using administrative records between August 2018 and April 2020....

The level of diseconomies of scale in asset management has important implications for tests of manager skill and the expected level of performance persistence. To identify the causal impact of fund size on future returns, we exploit the fact that small differences in returns can cause discrete...

We study the impact of investor heterogeneity on mutual fund market segmentation. To motivate our empirical analysis, we make two assumptions. First, some investors inherently value broker services. Second, because brokers are only compensated when they sell mutual funds, they have little...

Economists have long been puzzled by the low demand for life annuities. To shed new light on this puzzle, we study payout choices in the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, where each retiree must choose between a lump sum and a life annuity. Notably, the average life annuity we study is...

Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is a rich setting in which to study the effect of pension design on employer costs and employee retirement-timing decisions. PERS pays retirees the maximum benefit calculated using three formulas that can be characterized as defined benefit...

The answer depends on how broker clients would have invested in the absence of broker recommendations. To identify counterfactual retirement portfolios, we exploit time-series variation in access to brokers by new plan participants. When brokers are available, they are chosen by new participants...

Following the Pension Protection Act of 2006, there was a sharp increase in the use of TDFs as default investment options in defined contribution retirement plans. We document large differences in realized TDF returns and risk profiles, even for funds with the same target retirement date. Using...

Household demand for actuarially unfair insurance against small risks has long puzzled economists. One way to potentially rationalize this demand is to recognize that (non-life) insurance is an incentive-compatible means of engaging an expert buyer. To quantify the benefits of expert buying, we...

Financial economists have long been puzzled by investor demand for actively managed funds that generate, on average, negative after-fee, risk-adjusted returns. To shed new light on this puzzle, we exploit the fact that funds in different market segments compete for different types of retail...