Since the 1970s, psychologists and economists have discussed the heuristics that typify people's “automatic system” of thinking, including the cognitive biases that can arise from these mental shortcuts. In more recent years, researchers in behavioral finance have also proposed ways to...

This chapter discusses personal financial planning, which is an interdisciplinary practice that employs a six-step process to develop integrated strategies for individuals and families to efficiently mobilize their human and financial capital to achieve their life goals. Financial planning draws...

• The financial planning profession's body of knowledge consists of a mix of consensus-based best practices and research-based findings founded upon formal standards of evidence. Even a cursory examination of that body of writing and codified practice, however, reveals the former to vastly...

Although planning policies are often implicit in the recommendations that financial planners provide their clients, taking the next step and transforming these into formal written statements can better help clients stay the course in an uncertain world. This article advances a framework for how...

Financial planning policies are compact decision rules that can act as a touchstone to both clients and their advisors and allow for rapid decision making in the face of a changing environment. Good policies represent the distillation of client goals and values, as well as the relevant financial...