Common Cents, a financial research lab at Duke University and supported by MetLife Foundation, today unveiled its 2016 Annual Report. The report details findings from seven completed behavioral intervention programs and ongoing research begun in 2016. The work is part of a three-year effort to improve the financial well being of 1.8 million low-to-moderate income (LMI) households in America.

Common Cents is one of the first to use social science field experiments within financial organizations for the purpose of gaining scalable behavioral insights that can improve Americans’ financial decision-making. The 2016 Annual Report enables companies and financial service providers to better understand the actions of modern consumers in an era of changing workforce trends and new financial tools.

“Many times, companies build products without a full understanding of human behavior. At the same time, academics arrive at novel theories that may be too difficult to drag and drop into a business model,” said Common Cents founder, Behavioral Economics Professor and New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely. “We are trying to bridge the gap between academia and industry to produce actionable and scalable behavioral insights that increase savings, eliminate debt and extend consumer benefits in a way that are economically viable for business.”

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