RAND BeFi Forum Fall 2015

In partnership with the Aspen Institute and in collaboration with the Institute for the Future

Behavioral Finance Forum
Theme: Consumer Financial Decision Making
With Implications for the Changing Landscape of Technology, the On-Demand Workforce, and Health Care Choices
Date: October 21, 2015
Time: 8:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Location: Aspen Institute
One Dupont Circle, NW
Suite 700
Washington, D.C.
Webcast: https://youtu.be/QosdNiAtrTk

Event Details

Sessions included:

Spotlight Panels

  • Technology platforms and workforce financial decision making
  • Post-ACA era and financial decision making

Academic Panels

  • Credit Card Repayment
  • Boosting Savings
  • Biases in Managing Finance

The thematic content woven throughout our panel discussions will highlight:

  • The emerging new roles of government and the private sector in the evolving landscape
  • Stewardship of the consumer decision-making landscape in order to serve the public good
  • Post-ACA decision making biases and perceptions of risk to navigate the tension between quality of care and financial health coverage decisions
  • Emerging 1099 workforce topics, which will generate a more complex decision making landscape for debt, savings, and retirement
  • New tools, products and services which can be developed for these new landscapes

Since 2008, BeFi has provided a platform for the academic community to present cutting-edge financial and economic behavioral decision making research. By convening policymakers, practitioners, and researchers, RAND facilitates the behavioral finance and economic discourse to improve decision making and outcomes. This year's BeFi Forum will continue this approach but will also explore the evolving and more complex nature of decision making. The emergence of an "on-demand" workforce, demographic trends, and cultural cognition biases create new challenges and opportunities to address. The post-ACA era also generates new decision making biases and perceptions of risk to navigate the tension between quality of care and the financial aspects of health coverage decisions. Technology has accelerated the changes in the landscape in which decisions are made, acting as a challenge while simultaneously offering solutions to navigate them. In short, the scale of the decision making environment has considerably expanded. Our presentations and panels will not only examine the evidence base in current behavioral economics and finance but will also explore implications for this evolving future.

2015 Conference Proceedings

BeFi Conference Agenda

Agenda is subject to change. All times are Eastern.

CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

8:00 - 8:20 a.m.

WELCOME, RAND Corporation and the Aspen Institute

8:20 - 8:30 a.m.

OPENING REMARKS

8:30 - 9:00 a.m.
 

Maya Shankar, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Senior Advisor for the Behavioral Sciences; Chair, Social and Behavioral Sciences Team
POTUS Executive Order 13707: Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People

  

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

9:00 - 10:00 a.m.
 

Robert J. Shiller, Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2013; Author, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception

  

BREAK

10:00 - 10:15 a.m.

SPOTLIGHT PANEL

10:15 - 11:30 a.m.
 

The Changing Behavioral Finance Landscape: Technology and the On-Demand Workforce

Devin Fidler, Institute for the Future, Director, Workable Futures Initiative
Maureen Conway, Aspen Institute, Executive Director, Economic Opportunities Program Director
Ryan Falvey, Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI), Director, Financial Solutions Lab

Moderator: Krishna Kumar, RAND Corporation, Director, RAND Labor and Population; Distinguished Chair in International Economic Policy; Senior Economist

BREAK

11:30 - 11:45 a.m.

PANEL I

Information and Framing in Credit Card Repayment

11:45 - 1:00 p.m.

Minimum Payments and Debt Pay Down in Consumer Credit Cards
Jialan Wang, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Are Information Disclosures Effective? Evidence from the Credit Card Market
Eduardo Laguna-Müggenburg, Stanford University

When Simpler is Better: Evidence from Interest Rate Displays
Melissa Knoll, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Discussant:   Katherine Carman, RAND Corporation

Moderator:   Joyce Klein, Aspen Institute, Director, Economic Opportunities Program

LUNCH

1:00 - 1:15 p.m.

SPOTLIGHT LUNCH PANEL

1:15 - 2:30 p.m.
 

The Changing Consumer Behavioral Decision Making Landscape in the Post Affordable Care Act Era

Lynn Quincy, Consumers Union, Director, Director, Health Care Value Hub
Rachel Maguire, Institute for the Future, Research Director, Health Finance
Mike McGinnis, National Academy of Medicine, Executive Director, Leadership Consortium for Value and Science Driven Health Care
Deborah Freund, RAND Corporation, Paul O'Neill Alcoa Chair in Policy Analysis

Moderator: Ruth Katz, Aspen Institute, Director, Health Medicine and Society Program

  

PANEL II

Behavioral Interventions to Boost Savings

2:30 - 3:45 p.m.

Consumer Financial Decision Making and Human-Computer Interaction
Oded Nov, New York University

Role of Time Preferences and Exponential Growth Bias in Retirement Savings
Joshua Tasoff, Claremont Graduate University

Using Field Experiments to Inform Regulatory Policy: Testing New Disclosure for UK Savings Accounts
Redis Zaliauskas, UK Financial Conduct Authority

Discussant:   Philip Armour, RAND Corporation

Moderator:   Jeremy Smith, Aspen Institute, Associate Director, Financial Security

BREAK

3:45 - 4:00 p.m.

PANEL III

Behavioral Biases in Managing Finances

4:00 - 5:15 p.m.

Understanding the Expense Prediction Bias
Chuck Howard, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia

The Cost of Keeping Track
Johannes Haushofer, Princeton University

The Interpersonal Dynamics of Shared Financial Decisions
Scott Rick, University of Michigan

Discussant:   Salar Jahedi, RAND Corporation

Moderator:   Ida Rademacher, Aspen Institute, Executive Director, Initiative on Financial Security

CLOSING REMARKS

5:15 - 5:30 p.m.

Further Inquiries

Contact randbefi@rand.org.