Social Security Privatization: Investment Choice and Field Experiments in Mexico

描述(申请人提供)：社会保障改革是世界各地经济和政策辩论中最紧迫的问题之一。取代现收现付制的潜在收益取决于私有化在效率和投资回报方面的收益。然而，与任何产品市场一样，消费者和企业的基本行为决定了市场效率。该项目将研究墨西哥私有化社会保障体系中的工人如何选择投资基金，以及消费者行为对公司之间的竞争、均衡费用和效率的影响。通过与墨西哥社会保障管理局CONSAR的独特合作，我获得了前所未有的访问该系统中每个个人退休账户的管理数据。首先，我将使用这些数据来估计一个灵活的离散选择模型，该模型反映了员工的基金选择(需求)的决定因素，以及不同人口统计数据的消费者如何愿意权衡基金特征，如手续费、余额费用、过去的回报、品牌名称和便利性(例如，银行分行的邻近程度)。然后，我将使用需求估计来检验墨西哥养老基金市场上的高均衡费用是由于缺乏弹性的需求还是公司的非竞争行为。其次，我将对随机选择的工人进行家庭调查，收集有关教育、储蓄行为和金融知识衡量标准等关键人口统计数据的信息。我将把调查数据与行政数据联系起来，研究这些人口统计数据是如何影响员工的选择的。此外，调查将嵌入实地实验，以测试工人的基金选择如何改变，提供关于费用的透明信息和关于财务概念的简短教程(例如，复利的重要性)。这将让我测试低收入工人是否因为面临更高的信息或决策成本而对费用的关注度低于高收入工人，以及简单的政策干预是否可以降低信息成本和他们支付的管理费。该项目将汇集独特的数据集和不同的实证技术，以全面了解影响工人如何选择基金的因素，基金经理如何选择管理费，以及对私有化社会保障体系中退休后财富分配的影响。公共卫生相关性：该研究项目使用来自墨西哥社会保障体系的数据来研究工人如何选择投资基金，基金经理如何选择管理费，以及在私有化的社会保障体系中对退休后财富分配的影响。该项目还实施了一项调查和随机实地试验，以检查决策成本和金融知识如何影响工人的资金选择，以及政策制定者可以做些什么来增加私有化市场的竞争，以确保所有背景的工人都能有足够的资金用于健康退休。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Social security reform is one of the most pressing issues in economic and policy debates around the world. The potential gain from replacing a pay-as-you-go system depends on the gains in efficiency and investment returns from privatization. However, as in any product market, the fundamental behavior of consumers and firms determines market efficiency. The project will examine how workers in Mexico's privatized social security system choose investment funds, and the implication of consumer behavior for competition between firms, equilibrium fees and efficiency. Through a unique collaboration with the Mexican social security administration, CONSAR, I have been given unprecedented access to administrative data on every individual retirement account in the system. First, I will use these data to estimate a flexible discrete choice model of the determinants of workers' fund choices (demand) and how consumers of varying demographics are willing to trade-off fund characteristics, such as load fees, balance fees, past returns, brand name, and convenience (e.g., bank branch proximity). I will then use the demand estimates to examine if the high equilibrium fees in the Mexican pension fund market are due to inelastic demand or non-competitive behavior by firms. Second, I will implement a household survey of randomly selected workers to collect information on key demographics such as education, savings behavior, and measures of financial literacy. I will link the survey data back to the administrative data to examine how these demographics influence worker's choices. In addition, the survey will embed field experiments to test how workers' fund choices change with transparent information on fees and brief tutorials on financial concepts (e.g., the importance of compounding). This will allow me to test if low-income workers pay less attention to fees than higher- income workers because they face higher information or decision making costs, and whether a simple policy intervention can lower information costs and decrease the management fees they pay. This project will bring together unique data sets and diverse empirical techniques to gain an integral understanding of the factors that influence how workers choose funds, how fund managers choose management fees, and the implications for the distribution of wealth at retirement in a privatized social security system. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research project uses data from the Mexican social security system to examine how workers choose investment funds, how fund managers choose management fees, and the implications for the distribution of wealth at retirement in a privatized social security system. The project also implements a survey and a randomized field experiment in order to examine how decision-making costs and financial literacy impact worker's fund choices, and what policy makers can do to increase competition in a privatized market in order to ensure that workers from all backgrounds can have sufficient funds for a healthy retirement.