Revealed preferences are tastes that rationalize an economic agent's observed actions. Normative preferences represent the agent's actual interests. It sometimes makes sense to assume that revealed preferences are identical to normative preferences. But there are many cases where this assumption...

We document a flypaper effect in asset allocation: securities received in kind quot;stick where they hit.quot; We study a firm that twice changed the rules governing the securities in which its 401(k) matching contributions were initially invested. Both of these rule changes were economically...

It is typically difficult to determine whether households invest optimally. But sometimes, investment incentives are strong enough to create sharp normative restrictions. We identify employees at seven companies who are eligible to receive employer matching contributions in their 401(k) and can...

We show that individual investors over-extrapolate from their personal experience when making savings decisions. Investors who experience particularly rewarding outcomes from saving in their 401(k)-a high average and/or low variance return-increase their 401(k) savings rate more than investors...

Experimental subjects allocate $10,000 across four Samp;P 500 index funds. Subject rewards depend on the chosen portfolio's subsequent return. Because the investments are not actually intermediated by the fund companies, portfolio returns are unbundled from non-portfolio services. The optimal...

We provide evidence that time and risk preference norms tied to social identities help shape observed U.S. demographic patterns in economic outcomes. We identify the marginal effect of norms by measuring how laboratory subjects' choices change when an aspect of social identity is made salient....