Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is a rich setting in which to study the effect of pension design on employer costs and employee retirement-timing decisions. PERS pays retirees the maximum benefit calculated using three formulas that can be characterized as defined benefit...

The answer depends on how broker clients would have invested in the absence of broker recommendations. To identify counterfactual retirement portfolios, we exploit time-series variation in access to brokers by new plan participants. When brokers are available, they are chosen by new participants...

Following the Pension Protection Act of 2006, there was a sharp increase in the use of TDFs as default investment options in defined contribution retirement plans. We document large differences in realized TDF returns and risk profiles, even for funds with the same target retirement date. Using...

Financial economists have long been puzzled by investor demand for actively managed funds that generate, on average, negative after-fee, risk-adjusted returns. To shed new light on this puzzle, we exploit the fact that funds in different market segments compete for different types of retail...

In markets for experience goods, publications exist to help consumers decide which products to purchase. However, in most cases these publications accept advertising from the very firms whose products they review, raising the possibility that they bias product reviews to favor advertisers. To...

We study demand for advice within defined contribution retirement plans offered by 23 institutions where TIAA is sole recordkeeper. Advice seeking increases with age, account balance, annual contribution level, web access, and changes in marital status. More provocatively, participants who...

Poor debt-management skills lower financial security and wealth accumulation. Because optimal solutions to credit repayment problems depend on neither risk preferences nor beliefs, loan repayment is a prime application for robo-advising. Vulnerable households, though, tend to distrust new...

Economists have long been puzzled by the low demand for life annuities. To shed new light on this puzzle, we study payout choices in the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, where each retiree must choose between a lump sum and a life annuity. Notably, the average life annuity we study is...