There is reason to believe that technological approaches can help promote voluntary saving in 401(k) retirement accounts. Working with Vanguard, a leading 401(k) plan administrator, we are evaluating the impact of introducing innovations to websites made available to retirement plan...

Algorithms hold great potential to lower costs and democratize access to a wide variety of consumer services. How do humans interact with algorithms, and what are the major barriers to algorithmic adoption? We answer these questions using a structural model applied to unique data that captures...

We use a broad survey to elicit investor needs and their satisfaction in the context of financial advice. We provide evidence that traditionally-advised individuals do not hire financial advisors mainly to maximize portfolio returns. They instead hire financial advisors to satisfy a broader set...

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...

Though millions of US workers have 401(k) plans, few studies evaluate participant investment performance. Using data on over 1,000 401(k) plans and their participants, we identify key portfolio investment inefficiencies and attribute them to offered investment menus versus individual portfolio...

Portfolio performance in 401(k) plans depends on both the investment menu made available by plan sponsors and participants portfolio decisions. We use a unique dataset of nearly 1 million participants in one thousand pension plans to identify key portfolio inefficiencies in 401(k) plans,...