I survey the advice given by the fifty most popular personal finance books and compare it to the prescriptions of normative academic economic models. Popular advice frequently departs from normative principles derived from economic theory, which should motivate new hypotheses about why...

This chapter provides an overview of household finance. The first part summarizes key facts regarding household financial behavior, emphasizing empirical regularities that are inconsistent with the standard classical economic model and discussing extensions of the classical model and...

We survey 2,484 U.S. individuals with at least $1 million of investable assets about how well leading academic theories describe their financial beliefs and decisions. The most important factors determining portfolio equity share are professional advice, time until retirement, personal...

We survey 2,484 U.S. individuals with at least $1 million of investable assets about how well leading academic theories describe their financial beliefs and personal investment decisions. The wealthy’s beliefs about financial markets and the economy are surprisingly similar to those of the...

Automatic enrollment is often used to increase retirement savings. What are the effects of using it (or, alternatively, requiring an active enrollment choice) to increase short-term savings? We evaluate two experiments in the U.K. at employers that enable workers to set up payroll contributions...