Measuring Preferences Needed to Guide Saving and Investing for Retirement

描述（由申请人提供）：美国老年人面临着复杂的财务和健康决策的困境，加上随着年龄的增长认知能力下降的发病率很高。应对认知限制对经济决策的影响的重要政策建议之一是建立制度，如“自动401（k）”，它默认人们做出“好”的选择。这种方法的困难在于，要知道什么是个人的“好选择”，关键取决于了解她的偏好。特别是，对于退休储蓄和投资选择，它是至关重要的是要知道三个偏好参数的值：风险厌恶，时间偏好和跨期替代弹性（EIS）。即使政策忽略了个体差异，并创造了一种默认版本，对群体中每个人来说，一个“好”的选择仍然取决于至少知道该群体中偏好的分布。这个项目将扩展我们的理解，并进一步确定这些偏好以及这些偏好的表达如何受到认知能力的影响。具体目标是：（1）在高水平上理解风险规避措施中分析细节的不一致性，并开始对时间偏好和跨期替代弹性这样做;（2）测量认知限制的程度（与非标准偏好相反）是造成不同风险偏好度量不一致的原因，也是时间偏好和跨期替代弹性的原因;和（3）开发的方法，以克服困难的认知限制造成的测量这些偏好，特别是通过引发“合理的偏好”，而不是使用“untutored偏好”，并实施这些方法在一个大样本的成年人在黄金年退休储蓄。更普遍的目标是开发技术，以确定“合理的偏好”，为更大的偏好集，重要的是困难的决定，美国老年人面临的，甚至超越退休储蓄的决定。 公共卫生相关性：个人适当的财务或健康决定往往部分取决于个人的偏好，如愿意承担风险。该项目将研究认知能力如何与财务和健康决策相关的偏好措施相互作用，并将开发这些偏好的改进措施，以帮助人们做出最适合他们的决定。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Older Americans face the dilemma of complex financial and health decisions combined with a high incidence of cognitive decline with age. One of the important policy proposals for dealing with the effects of cognitive limitations on economic decision- making is to set up institutions, such as "automatic 401(k)'s," which default people in to "good" choices. The difficulty with this approach is that knowing what a "good choice" is for an individual depends crucially on knowing her preferences. In particular, for retirement saving and investment choices, it is crucial to know the values of three preference parameters: risk aversion, time preference and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS). Even if policy ignores individual differences and creates one version of the default, a "good" choice for everyone in the group still depends on at least knowing the distribution of preferences in that group. This project will extend our understanding and further our identification of these preferences and how the expression of these preferences is affected by cognitive abilities. The specific aims are to: (1) Understand at a high level of analytic detail inconsistencies in measures of risk aversion and begin to do so for time preferences and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution; (2) Gauge the extent to which cognitive limitations (as opposed to non-standard preferences) are responsible for inconsistencies in different measures of risk preferences, and also time preferences and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution; and (3) Develop methods to overcome the difficulties cognitive limitations create in measuring these preferences-in particular by eliciting "reasoned preferences" rather than using "untutored preferences," and implement these methods on a large sample of adults in the prime years for retirement saving. The more general aim is to develop techniques for identifying "reasoned preferences" for the even larger set of preferences that matter for difficult decisions that older Americans face, even beyond the retirement saving decision. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The appropriate financial or health decision for an individual often depends in part on the individual's preferences, such as willingness to take risks. This project will study how cognitive abilities interact with measures of preferences that are relevant for financial and health decision-making, and will develop improved measures of these preferences that can be used to help people make the decisions that are best for them.