The role of information and social interactions in retirement plan decisions
Subtitle: evidence from a randomized experiment
By: Esther Duflo [and] Emmanuel Saez
Contributors: Saez, Emmanuel; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics
Series: Working paper series / Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics -- working paper 02-23; Working paper (Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics) -- no. 02-23.
Publisher: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 35
Description: This paper analyzes a randomized experiment to shed light on the role of information and social interactions in employees' decisions to enroll in a Tax Deferred Account (TDA) retirement plan within a large university. The experiment encouraged a random sample of employees in a subset of departments to attend a benefits information fair organized by the university, by promising a monetary reward for attendance. The experiment more than tripled the attendance rate of these treated individuals (relative to controls), and doubled that of untreated individuals within departments where some individuals were treated. TDA enrollment 5 and 11 months after the fair was significantly higher in departments where some individuals were treated than in departments where nobody was treated. However, the effect on TDA enrollment is almost as large for individuals in treated departments who did not receive the encouragement as for those who did. We provide three interpretations, differential treatment effects, social network effects, and motivational reward effects, to account for these results. JEL Classification: D83, I22.
Notes: "March 21, 2002."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-35).

Abstract in HTML and working paper for download in PDF available via World Wide Web at the Social Science Research Network.