This paper presents the results of an experiment testing the roles of a savings pre-commitment and different savings-focused choice architectures on the savings deposit decisions of 845,786 low- and moderate-income (LMI) tax filers. Results suggest that pre-committing to save at the start of the...

This paper investigates how saving the federal tax refund affects gig economy participation forlow-income online tax filers in the six months following tax filing. Using longitudinal surveyand administrative data, we leverage random assignment in a unique refund savings experimentas an...

Many U.S. households — especially those with low- to moderate-incomes (LMI) — struggle to save for retirement. To address this issue, the Department of the Treasury launched myRA, a no-fee retirement account designed primarily to help people who lacked access to employer-sponsored plans...

As policy-makers grapple with whether or not to forgive student debt, for who, and how much, it is important to explore how student debt forgiveness would relate to intended household decisions and behaviors. We conducted a survey experiment that asked participants with student debt to imagine a...

Using data on over 57,000 low-income tax filers, we estimate the effect of Medicaid access on the propensity of households to save or repay debt from their tax refunds. We instrument for Medicaid access using variation in state eligibility rules. We find substantial heterogeneity across...