Examines the relative roles of cognitive ability and financial literacy, and decline in cognitive ability, in influencing retirement-related financial behaviors, such as retirement saving and the decumulation of wealth.
To help school district leaders and teachers make informed decisions about the adoption and use of appropriate K–12 financial education curricula, RAND researchers document the current state of the literature and advance a set of criteria for assessing the content, utility, quality, and efficacy of the curricula.
This report reviews evidence from the research literature about whether working with a financial adviser improves savings behavior, in general, as well as saving for long-term goals, particularly retirement. Individuals who receive professional financial advice are likely to be more financially healthy, but few papers address reverse causation, limiting insights into whether advisers are causing improvements in their clients' savings behavior.
In the financial services market, financial service providers often have better information about the quality, features, fees, risks, and benefits of their products or services than consumers. In this report, we review the literature on consumer disclosures in the financial industry. The primary focus is on disclosures of conflicts of interest, but we also examine use of disclosure associated with other common financial products or services.
This review compares financial advice markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Singapore, and the European Union, where regulatory changes aimed at improving the quality of financial advice have recently been made, to determine how such changes have affected financial advice markets.
Examines if and how financial advisors are influenced by their compensation schemes and how this influence impacts retail investors' financial well-being.
The U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration's proposed new rule, 29 CFR Part 2510, "Definition of the Term "Fiduciary," for the purpose of protecting retirement investors from self-dealing (i.e., investment advisors acting in their own interests to the detriment of their clients) in professional advice to retirement investors. The paper analyzes potential effects of the rule on IRA markets and investors.
This talk provides an overview of research that seeks to better understand the psychological processes underlying Social Security claiming decisions. The research shows that claiming decisions are affected by subjective judgments of life expectation as well as psychological measures of loss aversion, patience, and perceived ownership. Findings provide important insights for the design of interventions for optimal individual retirement decisions.
In the mid-1990s, the Social Security Administration started automatically mailing personalized Statements with information on projected retirement benefits, coverage for disability benefits, and survivors' benefits. This video talk provides an overview of how information interventions like the Statement can affect behavior.
To help educators think about which curriculum to use, and to better understand the strengths and gaps in the curriculum currently being used, the RAND Corporation developed this tool for reviewing financial education curricula.
Explores the relationships between financial trust and behaviors, attitudes, knowledge and preferences related to utilizing professional financial advice.
In this paper, we designed and evaluated a financial education programme that demonstrably increased participants’ objective knowledge and self-efficacy.
Video compilation of the 2014 Behavioral Finance (BeFi) Forum in Washington, D.C., a day-long event that included a series of topical panels on curated presentations of academic research followed by discussion by leading researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.
This talk provides an overview of work in the area of using visual representations of data to assist individuals with financial decisionmaking and improve financial literacy.
Craig R. Fox discusses the importance of both subjective and objective knowledge in financial decision making.
Tests a new 'soft' commitment account that has no external restrictions on savings behavior on borrowers against externally restricted accounts such as 'commitment accounts'.
This talk first reviews the literature on confidence and decisionmaking and then goes on to present results from data analyzed from a national sample recruited through RAND's American Life Panel, an Internet panel study of U.S. adults aged 18–88 years. Implications for the role of confidence in investment behavior is discussed.
Provides a normative and positive review of pension benefit statement design.
Examines the level and distribution of consumers' financial literacy across income groups, using 2012 data collected in the RAND American Life Panel.
Video compilation of the 2013 Behavioral Finance (BeFi) Forum in Washington, D.C., a day-long event that included a series of topical panels on curated presentations of academic research followed by discussion by leading practitioners.
Presents and discusses data on whether video games can increase the financial capability of millions of financially vulnerable Americans.
Seeks to explain the limited demand for payout annuities.
Uses a large-scale field experiment to measure whether people save more if they are better able to understand the relationship between the amount they contribute to a retirement plan and their annual income in retirement.
Uses survey data to examine the role of social expectations, financial literacy and knowledge of default consequences.
Many retirees face out-of-pocket expenses for premiums, cost-sharing obligations, and items or services not covered by Medicare or supplemental health coverage. This study suggests that many retirees and near-retirees do not understand the magnitude and variability of their future out-of-pocket health care costs and may be unprepared to finance higher-than-typical expenditures.
