May 2022

People and Investor Attention to Climate Change

People and Investor Attention to Climate Change

By Mauro Aliano, Franco Fiordelisi, Giuseppe Galloppo & Viktoriia Paimanova This paper empirically studies whether people and investors globally really see climate change as a major threat, as defined by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Our identification strategy aims to investigate two research questions: (1) whether people attention to Climate Change varies depending on local natural disasters and (2) how does the climate change attention affect the stock price of local firms and, thus, the investors’ trading behavior....

April 2022

Changes in Retirement Savings during the COVID Pandemic

Changes in Retirement Savings during the COVID Pandemic

By Elena Derby, Lucas Goodman, Kathleen Mackie, & Jacob Mortenson This paper documents changes in retirement saving patterns at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We construct a large panel of U.S. tax data, including tens of millions of person-year observations, and measure retirement savings contributions and withdrawals. We use these data to document several important changes in retirement savings patterns during the pandemic years relative to the years preceding the pandemic or the Great Recession. First, unlike during the...

March 2022

High Pay Centre briefing: Pension saver views on the social and environmental impact of investments

By Andrew Speke & Luke Hildyard Pension savings make up a significant and growing proportion of individual wealth in the UK. The latest government figures from 2018 show that £2.6 trillion is invested in UK pensions, up from £2.3 trillion in 2015.(1) Pension savings are also one of the most commonly held forms of wealth in the UK. The percentage of adults below the State Pension age actively contributing to a private pension has increased, from 43% in 2012, to 53%...

Exponential Growth Bias and the Law: Why Do We Save Too Little, Borrow Too Much, and Fail to React on Time to Deadly Pandemics and Climate Change?

Exponential Growth Bias and the Law: Why Do We Save Too Little, Borrow Too Much, and Fail to React on Time to Deadly Pandemics and Climate Change?

By Doron Teichman & Eyal Zamir Many human decisions, ranging from the taking of loans with compound interest to fighting deadly pandemics, involve phenomena that entail exponential growth. Yet a wide and robust body of empirical studies demonstrates that people systematically underestimate exponential growth. This phenomenon, dubbed the exponential growth bias (EGB), has been documented in numerous contexts, across different populations, using both experimental and observational methods. Despite its centrality to human decision making, legal scholarship has thus far failed to...

The Impacts of Matching Contributions on Retirement Savings: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Turkey

The Impacts of Matching Contributions on Retirement Savings: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Turkey

By Sadettin Haluk Çitçi & Halit Yanikkaya Using a dataset containing information for more than 39 million contracts and a quasi-experimental design provided by national matching contribution policy reform in Turkey, we study the effects of matching contributions on saving outcomes and determine heterogeneities in responses to matching contribution. Differences-in-differences estimations show that the program leads to a substantial rise in contributions paid. The matching contribution policy raises contributions paid by 18 percent. Moreover, after 30 percent sharp rise in...

Allowing Early Access to Retirement Savings: Lessons from Australia

Allowing Early Access to Retirement Savings: Lessons from Australia

By Nathan Wang-Ly & Ben Rhodri Newell In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments around the world introduced policies aiming to provide citizens with financial relief through early access to their retirement savings. In Australia, the Early Release of Super (ERS) scheme allowed eligible citizens to withdraw up to A$20,000 in funds between April and December 2020. Using data provided by a large Australian bank, we examine the characteristics of the individuals who withdrew, how they used the withdrawn...

February 2022

Overpaying and Undersaving? Correlated Mistakes in Retirement Saving and Health Insurance Choices

Overpaying and Undersaving? Correlated Mistakes in Retirement Saving and Health Insurance Choices

By Leora Friedberg & Adam Leive Not everyone makes wise financial choices. A large body of research documents behavior inconsistent with well-informed consumers maximizing their expected utility of consumption. It remains unknown, however, whether such behavior is correlated across domains. This paper uses two novel datasets to test whether the quality of health insurance and retirement saving decisions are correlated. Using administrative panel data from a large employer, we find that people who overpay for health insurance by choosing a...

How the Pandemic Altered Americans’ Debt Burden and Retirement Readiness

How the Pandemic Altered Americans’ Debt Burden and Retirement Readiness

By Andrea Hasler, Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell This paper analyzes Americans’ perceptions of being debt constrained. We focus on which population subgroups reported feeling most debt constrained, how this perception was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it relates to financial literacy and retirement readiness. To this end, we analyze two datasets, namely the 2020 and 2021 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index files (P-Fin Index). The evidence shows that, prior to and during the pandemic, one in...

Assessing Chile’s Pension System: Challenges and Reform Options

By Christopher Evans & Samuel Pienknagura Chile’s pension system came under close scrutiny in recent years. This paper takes stock of the adequacy of the system and highlights its challenges. Chile’s defined contribution system was quite influential when introduced, and was taken as an example by other countries. However, it is now delivering low replacement rates relative to OECD peers, as its parameters did not adapt over time to changing demographics and global returns, while informality persists in the labor...

The Taxation of Pensions

By Robert Holzmann & John Piggott Theoretical and policy perspectives on the taxation of pension, viewed in an international context. Policy makers and academic researchers have been preoccupied in recent decades with the design of pension schemes and effective pension system reform. Relatively little attention has been given to the taxation of pensions and, more broadly, the provision of retirement income. In this book, experts from a range of countries explore the interconnection. Their contributions are especially timely, given recent demographic...