As financial literacy has been shown to correlate with good financial decisions, policymakers promote educational programs to improve individuals’ financial decisions. But who selects into educational programs and who acquires information about personal finance? This paper, in a field study...

This paper tests whether heterogeneity of time preferences can explain individual credit behavior. In a field experiment targeting individuals from low-to-moderate income households, we measure individual time preferences through choice experiments, and then match these time preference measures...

Individuals frequently face intertemporal decisions. For the purposes of economic analysis, the preference parameters assumed to govern these decisions are generally considered to be stable economic primitives. However, evidence on the stability of time preferences is notably lacking. In a large...

Some individuals borrow extensively on their credit cards. This paper tests whether present-biased time preferences correlate with credit card borrowing. In a field study, we elicit individual time preferences with incentivized choice experiments, and match resulting time preference measures to...

In the traditional retirement scenario, individuals work full-time until a given age and then stop working abruptly. In the alternative partial retirement scenario, individuals work part-time for several years before they stop working. For the individual, partial retirement provides a smooth...

Based on data from a large-scale computer-based survey among more than 3700 German citizens, this paper empirically disentangles the determinants of the general change of electricity contracts and the specific change to green electricity contracts. Our econometric analysis reveals a strong...

Informational interventions have been shown to significantly change behavior across a variety of settings. Is that because they lead subjects to merely update beliefs in the right direction? Or, alternatively, is it to a large extent because they increase the salience of the decision they...

The aim of this study is to link variation in energy cost misperceptions to variation in households' energy consumption. The focus is on two sorts of misperceptions: First, present biased discounting of future energy costs and second, biased energy price beliefs. By running an artefactual field...

Taxpayer nudges - behavioral interventions that aim to increase tax compliance without changing the underlying economic incentives of taxpayers - are used increasingly by governments because of their potential cost-effectiveness in raising tax revenue. We collect about a thousand treatment...