Revealed preferences are tastes that rationalize an economic agent's observed actions. Normative preferences represent the agent's actual interests. It sometimes makes sense to assume that revealed preferences are identical to normative preferences. But there are many cases where this assumption...

Experimental subjects allocate $10,000 across four Samp;P 500 index funds. Subject rewards depend on the chosen portfolio's subsequent return. Because the investments are not actually intermediated by the fund companies, portfolio returns are unbundled from non-portfolio services. The optimal...

We document a flypaper effect in asset allocation: securities received in kind quot;stick where they hit.quot; We study a firm that twice changed the rules governing the securities in which its 401(k) matching contributions were initially invested. Both of these rule changes were economically...

An unexpected wealth windfall should increase consumption shortly after the windfall is received. We test this prediction using administrative records on over 40,000 401(k) accounts. Contrary to theory, we estimate a negative short-run marginal propensity to consume out of idiosyncratic 401(k)...

We study the relationship between past returns on a company's stock and the level of investment in that stock by the participants in that company's 410(k) plan. Using data on the 94,191 plan participants, we analyze several different decision points: the initial fraction of saving allocated to a...

We assess the impact of 401(k) plan design on four different 401(k)savings outcomes: participation in the 401(k) plan, the distribution of employee contribution rates, asset allocation, and cash distributions. We show that plan design can have an important effect on all of these savings...

The sophistication of financial decisions varies with age: middle-aged adults borrow at lower interest rates and pay fewer fees compared to both younger and older adults. We document this pattern in ten financial markets. The measured effects cannot be explained by observed risk characteristics....

We analyze the impact of a Web-based trading channel on the trading activity in two corporate 401(k) plans. Using detailed data on about 100,000 participants, we compare trading growth in these firms to growth for a sample of firms without a Web channel. After 18 months of access, the inferred...

We measure learning and forgetting dynamics using a panel with four million monthly credit card statements. Through negative feedback -- i.e. paying a fee -- consumers learn to avoid future fees. Paying a fee last month reduces fee payment in the current month by 40%. Monthly fee payments fall...