Over the past few decades, risks associated with providing for financial security in retirement have increasingly shifted from employers to employees as employer-provided pensions have shifted from defined-benefit to defined-contribution (DC) plans. Recent work in behavioral finance suggests...

This article surveys the growth of consumer credit in Australia during the 20th century, particularly after World War II. Until the 1970s, the regulation of Australia’s financial market caused formal consumer credit to be provided mainly by finance companies under hire-purchase contracts,...

Numerous laboratory studies find that minor nuances of presentation and description change behavior in ways that are inconsistent with standard economic models. How much do these context effects matter in natural settings, when consumers make large, real decisions and have the opportunity to...

We exploit data on German households’ savings in life insurance products, the characteristics of life insurance products and the specific tax treatment of savings in life insurance products to assess the importance of different savings motives and the effectiveness of tax incentives. Our...

Using a new non-parametric symmetry test we examine Canadian contract and survey data for evidence of nominal wage rigidities. We compare results from the two data sets with the view to examining the accuracy of survey data and consider whether the private/public and union/non-union sector...

Consistent with mental accounting, we document that investors sometimes choose the asset allocation for one account without considering the asset allocation of their other accounts. The setting is a firm that changed its 401(k) matching rules. Initially, 401(k) enrollees chose the allocation of...

The collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing wiped out much of their employees’ 401(k) savings, which had been heavily invested in employer stock. In response, bills have been proposed in Congress that would give employees the right to sell the employer stock in their 401(k), or that...

Public and private pensions control almost a quarter of the United States' tangible wealth--equivalent to all of the country's residential real estate. They account for most current saving in the country, are a crucial component of household retirement resources, and have significant effects on...

This collection of essays, coauthored with other distinguished economists, offers new perspectives on saving, intergenerational economic ties, retirement planning, and the distribution of wealth. The book links life-cycle microeconomic behavior to important macroeconomic outcomes, including the...

In developing countries, where health insurance is not a commonly purchased nancial instrument, recent debates have revolved around extending health insurance coverage to a wider range of the population, primarily via compulsory insurance schemes. However, these debates rarely consider the...