At three large firms offering 401(k) plans, we assess the impact of financial literacy and trust on 401(k) savings behavior in voluntary and automatic enrollment 401(k) plans. Financial literacy plays a critical role in improving 401(k) savings behavior - it reduces both the proportion of...

This chapter investigates how financial literacy and information overload influence the decision to purchase an annuity and how they relate to subsequent confidence and satisfaction. Using a dataset from a large-scale experiment, we find that as financial literacy increases, information overload...

Workers under age 35 have the lowest 401(k) participation of any age group. Failing to save for retirement at a young age means missing out on compounded investment earnings that can substantially ease the burden of building a nest egg. The reasons young workers save less for retirement range...

For years, researchers have been puzzled by why so few people purchase fixed, immediate, lifetime annuities for their retirement portfolios. Rational theories have been proposed, but none can fully explain the small size of the actual market. Very recently, academics have turned their attention...

The private pension landscape has changed dramatically over the past quarter century, with a decisive shift away from traditional defined benefit plans toward defined contribution plans, primarily 401(k)s. Under the typical 401(k), individuals are responsible for making their own retirement...

This paper examines portfolio choice, trading behavior, and realized rates of return of more than seven thousand 401(k) retirement accounts during the April 1994-August 1998 time period. The evidence on equity allocations is indicative of prudent behavior: on average our investors hold 40% of...

This paper studies a newly available data set of daily net transfers in several asset classes for roughly 1.5 million 401(k) participants, during the August 1997-September 2002 period. The main stylized fact is that 401(k) transfers correlate strongly and positively with the same-day asset...

Using a unique dataset of 401(k) trades, this paper's results suggest that in most cases only equity fund outflows, not inflows, are significantly related to their own past fund returns. Also, the strong correlation between flows and lagged returns is only significant when fund returns are...

We quantify the widespread and significant economic impact of first impressions and confirmation bias in the financial advice market. We use a theoretical learning model and new experimental data to measure how these biases can evolve over time and change clients' willingness to pay advisers....