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，现有的证据表明，个人没有为他们的退休储蓄足够，尽管获得税收递延退休账户。 此外，在退休时，家庭似乎不愿意使用年金，因为年金提供的长寿风险保险比自我保险更有效。 最后，许多家庭尽可能早地申请社会保障福利，但每月福利却大幅度减少。该项目旨在了解这些决定，以及可以做些什么来鼓励家庭使用理论和有偿人类受试者的实验做出更好的决定。因此，本项目的目标是符合国家科学基金会的使命，以促进国家的繁荣和福利。本项目包括三个主要的研究，其中每一个地方的受试者在一个现实的，个人的选择设置，并探讨他们在该设置，其中的决定是由货币支付激励。 实验对象将是大学生和从亚马逊土耳其机械公司招募的更广泛、人口统计学上更丰富的受试者。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TDA的自动登记等“轻推”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金化决策。 本研究的目的是了解影响年金领取的因素。 第三项研究探讨了为什么退休人员不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知识价值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.