People underestimate long-term growth in savings because they linearise exponential growth - a phenomenon known as exponential growth bias (EGB). This bias has implications for multiple financial decisions, particularly those relating to pensions. We hypothesised that underestimation might be...

This review identifies specific problems for consumers in credit, investment and insurance markets. It identifies multiple product features that are either poorly understood by many consumers or that generate systematic biases in their decisions.

This paper summarises useful evidence from behavioural science for fighting the COVID-19 outbreak. It is based on an extensive literature search of relevant behavioural interventions and studies of crises. The findings aim to be useful not only to government and public authorities, but to...

Self-isolation is a vital element of efforts to contain COVID-19. We report an online experiment with a nationally representative sample (N=500) that tested behaviourally informed decision aids to support self-isolation. The experiment had three stages that tested interventions designed to help...

This paper investigates whether exposure to explanatory diagrams can affect a major financial decision. In a controlled experiment, participants were given pension benefit statements with or without one or two diagrams, before answering incentivised questions that measured recall, comprehension...

A Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) plan is an innovative, complex and increasingly popular form of car finance. Consumers pay a deposit and monthly payments, but instead of paying off the total value of the car, they pay off the depreciation over a specified term. We used an experiment to...

We hypothesise and confirm a substantial framing effect in relation to whether people opt for an annuity on retirement. Two laboratory experiments were conducted in collaboration with a national pensions regulator. Individuals demanded a higher annuity rate when pensions were initially conceived...