Behavioral economics and the retirement savings crisis

Science

Volumn 339, Issue 6124, 2013, Pages 1152-1153

  Benartzi, Shlomo ^a,b   Thaler, Richard H ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b Allianz Global Investors Center for Behavioral Finance   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE; FINANCIAL CRISIS; RETIREMENT; SAVINGS;

BEHAVIOR DISORDER; BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS; COMPENSATION; COST CONTROL; EMPLOYEE; EMPLOYER; GOVERNMENT; INVESTMENT; MANAGER; ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT; PENSION; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RETIREMENT; REVIEW; SALARY; ARTICLE; HUMAN; UNITED STATES;

ECONOMICS, BEHAVIORAL; HUMANS; PENSIONS; RETIREMENT; UNITED STATES;

MLCS; MLOWN;

EID: 84874755731     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: 10959203     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1231320     Document Type: Review

References (20)

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10. Data provided by Aon Hewitt, which tends to focus on larger plans that are generally more innovative, so the numbers could be biased upward. By comparison, the Plan Sponsor Council of America reports in their 54th Annual Survey (19) that 46% of plans had automatic enrollment in 2011. Owing to confidentiality concerns, Aon Hewitt analyzed data on authors' behalf and only provided summary statistics displayed in the chart.
11. Pensions and Investments (2012); www.pionline.com/specialreports/dc- record-keepers/20120402.
12. According to 2010 Department of Labor data (20), the pensions and investments universe of plan providers covers more than 90% of all plan participants in the United States.
13. Firms shared data on condition of anonymity, so data are stripped of identifying information.
14. Plan Sponsor Council of America, 55th Annual Survey, 2012; www.psca.org/55th-survey.
15. At the authors' request, a large-plan administrator calculated a median income of $62K and average income of $93K for 1.8 million contributing participants in its plans, which suggests that our calculation may be conservative.
16. R. Chetty et al., Active vs. passive decisions and crowd-out in retirement savings accounts: Evidence from Denmark (NBER Working Paper No. 18565, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2012).
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19. Plan Sponsor Council of America, 54th Annual Survey, 2011; www.psca.org/54th-annual-survey.
20. U.S. Department of Labor, www.dol.gov/ebsa/PDF/2010pensionplanbulletin. PDF.