Collaborative Research: Lifecycle Savings and Retirement Planning

退休储蓄和退休后积累的储蓄分配是美国家庭做出的两个最重要的财务决定。然而，现有证据表明，尽管可以使用纳税递延退休账户，但个人没有为退休储蓄足够的资金。此外，在退休后，家庭似乎不愿使用年金，因为年金提供的长寿风险保险比自我保险更有效。最后，许多家庭在每月福利大幅减少的情况下，尽早申领社会保障福利。这个项目试图了解这样的决定，以及可以做些什么来鼓励家庭使用理论和付费人类受试者的实验做出更好的决定。因此，该项目的目标与NSF促进国家繁荣和福利的使命是一致的。该项目包括三项主要研究，每项研究都将受试者置于现实的个人选择环境中，并探索他们在这种环境下做出的决定，在这种环境下，决定受到金钱支付的激励。实验对象将是大学生和从亚马逊土耳其机械公司招募的范围更广、人口结构更丰富的研究对象。第一项研究探讨了递延纳税账户(TDA)在储蓄决策中的作用。这个项目的目的是了解TDA如何影响储蓄选择，以及自动注册TDA等“推动”如何改善储蓄行为。第二项研究探讨了家庭在退休时面临的年化决定。这个项目的目的是了解影响年金接受的因素。第三项研究探讨了为什么退休人员不会推迟领取社会保障福利。该项目的目标是了解退休福利赎回决定的积极和规范方面。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Saving for retirement and the allocation of accumulated savings upon retirement are two of the most consequential financial decisions that U.S. households make. Yet, the available evidence suggests that individuals do not save adequately for their retirement, despite access to tax deferred retirement accounts. Further, upon retirement, households seem reluctant to make use of annuities which provide insurance against longevity risk more efficiently than self-insurance. Finally, many households claim social security benefits at the earliest possible opportunity at a substantial reduction in their monthly benefits. This project seeks to understand such decisions and what might be done to encourage households to make better decisions using theory and experiments with paid human subjects. Thus, the goals of this project are in line with the NSF's mission to advance national prosperity and welfare.This project consists of three main studies, each of which place subjects in a realistic, individual choice setting and explore the decisions they make in that setting, where the decisions are incentivized by monetary payments. Experimental subjects will be a mix of university students and a broader, more demographically rich subject population recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. The first study explores the role of Tax Deferred Accounts (TDA) for savings decisions. The aim of this project is to understand how TDAs affect savings choices and how "nudges" such as automatic enrollment in TDAs might improve savings behavior. The second study explores the annuitization decision that households face at the time of retirement. The aim of this project is to understand the factors affecting annuity take-up. The third study explores why retirees don't delay taking social security benefits. The goal of this project is to understand both the positive and normative aspects of the retirement benefit redemption decision.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.