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  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2017
  5. Retirement Contribution Rate Nudges and Plan Participation: Evidence from a Field Experiment

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Retirement Contribution Rate Nudges and Plan Participation: Evidence from a Field Experiment

  • Jacob Goldin
  • Tatiana Homonoff
  • Will Tucker-Ray
American Economic Review
vol. 107, no. 5, May 2017
(pp. 456–61)
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Abstract

Simple interventions like changing the default or sending a short message can induce individuals to save more for retirement. However, messages that emphasize high savings rates may increase the amount that savings plan participants save while reducing the total number of plan participants. We study this possibility in the context of a field experiment designed to increase retirement savings by US military service-members. We find that service-members who received a message emphasizing a low contribution rate were more likely to participate in a savings plan than were service-members whose message emphasized a high contribution rate, or no rate at all.

Citation

Goldin, Jacob, Tatiana Homonoff, and Will Tucker-Ray. 2017. "Retirement Contribution Rate Nudges and Plan Participation: Evidence from a Field Experiment." American Economic Review, 107 (5): 456–61. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171059

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • C93 Field Experiments
  • D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
  • J26 Retirement; Retirement Policies
  • J45 Public Sector Labor Markets