The Pension Protection Act of 2006 identified target-date funds as an appropriate default investment for defined contribution retirement plans. Using the 2009 National Financial Capability Study, this paper examines the relation between investor sophistication and the decision to primarily...

Maintaining clients' financial satisfaction is a primary goal of financial planners. Previous research has found that net worth, income, and demographic characteristics are relevant to an individuals' financial satisfaction. However, no existing research identifies whether the alignment between...

There is growing empirical evidence that risk preferences change based on financial market conditions. This paper explores individual predictors of time varying risk aversion among participants in U.S. defined contribution plans using a unique dataset with daily responses to a risk tolerance...

We investigate whether myopic behavior influences respondents' risk perception of future stock market returns. Using the 2012 wave of the Health and Retirement Study, we find that investors who are myopic (follow the stock market “very closely” or “somewhat closely”) are more likely to...

The literature on risk tolerance overwhelmingly justifies the use of questionnaires based on validity and reliability or psychometric testing, but there has been little research examining the relation between questions and actual investor portfolio behavior. This study examines risk tolerance...

The continued shift to defined contribution plans and individual investment responsibility has made understanding what motivates individual behavior critical. Using 2010-2016 panel data from the Health and Retirement Study, this paper evaluates how stock market evaluation frequency and...

A great deal of research has studied the use of margin from an overall market perspective. However, very little has been observed regarding household decisions around margin use. The 2018 wave of the National Financial Capability Study Investor Survey provides unique insight into household...