Some eleven million 401(k) plan participants take a concentrated equity position in their retirement savings account, investing more than 20% of the balance in their employer's common stock. Yet investing in the stock of one's employer is a risky investment on two counts: single securities are...

We analyze the long-standing “annuity puzzle” through the lens of behavioral economics. We provide novel evidence that lessens the extent of the puzzle and shed some additional light on the real drivers of the decision to annuitize. Last, we discuss the policy implications of our findings

Governments are increasingly adopting behavioral science techniques for changing individual behavior in pursuit of policy objectives. The types of “nudge” interventions that governments are now adopting alter people's decisions without resorting to coercion or significant changes to economic...

One of the most important predictions of the dividend-signaling hypothesis is that dividend changes are positively correlated with future changes in profitability and earnings. Contrary to this prediction, we show that after controlling for the well-known non-linear patterns in the behavior of...

In this paper, we apply basic principles from the domain of design and architecture to choices made by employees saving for retirement. Three of the basic principles of design we apply are: (1) there is no neutral design, (2) design does matter, and (3) many of the seemingly minor design...

The equity premium puzzle, first documented by Mehra and Prescott, refers to the empirical fact that stocks have greatly outperformed bonds over the last century. As Mehra and Prescott point out, it appears difficult to explain the magnitude of the equity premium within the usual economics...

Nominal prices of common stocks have remained constant at around $30 per share since the Great Depression as a result of firms splitting their stocks. It is surprising that firms actively maintained constant nominal price for their shares while general prices in the economy went up more than ten...

There is a worldwide trend towards increasing investor autonomy. Investors are increasingly able to pick their own portfolios. How good a job are they doing? We present individuals saving for retirement with information about the distribution of outcomes they could expect from the portfolios...

Saving for retirement is a difficult problem, and most employees have little training upon which to draw in making the relevant decisions. Perhaps as a result, investors are relatively passive. They are slow to join advantageous plans; they make infrequent changes; and they adopt naiuml;ve...

The equity premium puzzle, first documented by Mehra and Prescott, refers to the empirical fact that stocks have greatly outperformed bonds over the last century. As Mehra and Prescott point out, it appears difficult to explain the magnitude of the equity premium within the usual economics...