The COVID-19 Early Release Scheme allowed Australian retirement plan participants in financial hardship immediate access to up to $A20,000 of their ‘preserved’ retirement savings, making otherwise illiquid balances temporarily liquid. Using administrative and survey data from a large...

Retirement saving is an area now jam-packed with defaults meant to address delayed or absent decision making. Yet, getting individuals engaged with retirement saving decisions is critical to avoid unsuitable one-size-fits-all defaults and optimise accumulated wealth. We apply a...

The COVID-19 Early Release Scheme allowed Australian retirement plan participants in financial hardship immediate access to up to $A20,000 of their ‘preserved’ retirement savings, making otherwise illiquid balances temporarily liquid. Using administrative and survey data from a large...

We report the results of two laboratory experiments that study how university student and staff participants chose retirement savings investment options using ‘user-friendly' information prescribed by regulators. We demonstrate that choices of more than 20% of participants cannot be predicted...

The implications of current balance information for retirement provision are considerably difficult to grasp or anticipate. We study how balance and/or income projections motivate the voluntary savings intentions of pension plan participants over a sequence of ten choices. To this effect, we...

Simplified disclosures can make comparisons between complex financial products easier, and increase consumer expertise. We use incentivized experiments to investigate whether and to what extent simpler information on fees and investment returns assists retirement plan members to make competent...

How do people save over their lifetime? Using a dynamic lifecycle model of saving and portfolio choice featuring risky labor income, housing, and safe and risky financial assets inside and outside pension plans with comprehensive choice architecture, we examine the behavior of members of an...