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...

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...

Using data from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, the current study evaluates the potential effect of using financial planners on household portfolio performance, which was measured by Sharpe Ratio. Results revealed that households that reported using financial planners demonstrated better...

In this study, we employ the 2001-2013 Survey of Consumer Finances to examine how prior investment outcomes affect portfolio allocation in defined contribution (DC) plans. Results show that investors with prior gains are more likely to invest all DC plan assets in stocks. Factors such as risk...