Browsing by Author "Madrian, Brigitte"

Now showing items 1-20 of 33

    • $100 Bills on the Sidewalk: Violations of No-Arbitrage in 401(k) Accounts 

      Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (MIT Press, 2011)
      We identify employees at seven companies whose 401(k) investment choices are dominated because they are contributing less than the employer matching contribution threshold despite being vested in their match and being able ...

    • Applying Insights from Behavioral Economics to Policy Design 

      Madrian, Brigitte (Annual Reviews, 2014)
      The premise of this article is that an understanding of psychology and other social science disciplines can inform the effectiveness of the economic tools traditionally deployed in carrying out the functions of government, ...

    • The Availability and Utilization of 401(k) Loans 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2011)
      We document the loan provisions in 401(k) savings plans and how participants use 401(k) loans. Although only about 22% of savings plan participants who are allowed to borrow from their 401(k) have such a loan at any given ...

    • Behavioral Economics Perspective on Public Sector Pension Plans 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
      We describe the pension plan features of the states and the largest cities and counties in the U.S. Unlike in the private sector, defined benefit (DB) pensions are still the norm in the public sector. However, a few ...

    • Behavioral Economics Perspectives on Public Sector Pension Plans 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2011)
      We describe the pension plan features of the states and the largest cities and counties in the U.S. Unlike in the private sector, defined benefit (DB) pensions are still the norm in the public sector. However, a few ...

    • A Commitment Contract to Achieve Virologic Suppression in Poorly Adherent Patients with HIV/AIDS 

      Alsan, Marcella; Beshears, John Leonard; Armstrong, Wendy S.; Choi, James J.; Madrian, Brigitte; Nguyen, Minh Ly T.; Del Rio, Carlos; Laibson, David I.; Marconi, Vincent C. (Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health), 2017)
      Objective: Assess whether a commitment contract informed by behavioral economics leads to persistent virologic suppression among HIV-positive patients with poor antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence. Design: Single-center ...

    • Consumer Financial Protection 

      Campbell, John Y.; Jackson, Howell Edmunds; Madrian, Brigitte C.; Tufano, Peter (American Economic Association, 2011)
      The recent financial crisis has led many to question how well businesses deliver services and how well regulatory institutions address problems in consumer financial markets. This paper discusses consumer financial regulation, ...

    • Consumers’ Misunderstanding of Health Insurance 

      Loewenstein, George; Friedman, Joelle Y.; McGill, Barbara; Ahmad, Sarah; Linck, Suzanne; Sinkula, Stacey; Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Kolstad, Jonathan; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte; List, John A.; Volpp, Kevin G. (Elsevier BV, 2013)
      We report results from two surveys of representative samples of Americans with private health insurance. The first examines how well Americans understand, and believe they understand, traditional health insurance coverage. ...

    • Does Aggregated Returns Disclosure Increase Portfolio Risk Taking? 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2017-06-09)
      Many experiments have found that participants take more investment risk if they see returns less frequently, see portfolio-level returns (rather than each individual asset’s returns), or see long-horizon (rather than ...

    • Does front-loading taxation increase savings? Evidence from Roth 401(k) introductions 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (Elsevier BV, 2017)
      Can governments increase private savings by taxing savings up front instead of in retirement? Roth 401(k) contributions are not tax-deductible in the contribution year, but withdrawals in retirement are untaxed. The more ...

    • The Effect of Providing Peer Information on Retirement Savings Decisions 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte; Milkman, Katherine L. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015)
      Using a field experiment in a 401(k) plan, we measure the effect of disseminating information about peer behavior on savings. Low-saving employees received simplified plan enrollment or contribution increase forms. A ...

    • Essays in Behavioral Household Finance 

      Skimmyhorn, William (2012-08-07)
      This dissertation investigates some of the factors affecting modern household finance decisions in the United States using natural experimental variation and administrative data. In Chapter 1 I estimate the effects of ...

    • Field Experiments in Behavioral and Public Economics 

      Bhanot, Syon Pandya (2015-05-11)
      The three essays in this dissertation present field experiments exploring phenomena in behavioral and public economics in real-world settings. The first essay outlines a field experiment that uses mailers with peer rank ...

    • Following through on Good Intentions: The Power of Planning Prompts 

      Milkman, Katherine L; Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2012)
      We study whether prompts to form and recall a plan can increase individuals’ responsiveness to reminders to make and attend beneficial appointments. At four companies, all employees due for a colonoscopy were randomly ...

    • Gradualism in Coordination and Trust Building 

      Ye, Maoliang (2012-08-17)
      Coordination and cooperation on public projects, as well as trust among society members are important for economic, social and political activities. This dissertation presents essays on the role of gradualism - increasing ...

    • How Are Preferences Revealed? 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (Elsevier, 2008)
      Revealed preferences are tastes that rationalize an economic agent's observed actions. Normative preferences represent the agent's actual interests. It sometimes makes sense to assume that revealed preferences are identical ...

    • How Does Simplified Disclosure Affect Individuals' Mutual Fund Choices? 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009)
      We use an experiment to estimate the effect of the SEC’s Summary Prospectus, which simplifies mutual fund disclosure. Our subjects chose an equity portfolio and a bond portfolio. Subjects received either statutory prospectuses ...

    • The Impact of Employer Matching on Savings Plan Participation under Automatic Enrollment 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (University of Chicago Press, 2010)
      Existing research has documented the large impact that automatic enrollment has on savings plan participation. All the companies examined in these studies, however, have combined automatic enrollment with an employer match. ...

    • The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United States 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (Oxford University Press, 2008)
      This paper summarizes the empirical evidence on how defaults impact retirement savings outcomes. After outlining the salient features of the various sources of retirement income in the U.S., the paper presents the empirical ...

    • Labor Market Responses to Rising Health Insurance Costs 

      Cutler, David; Madrian, Brigitte (RAND Corporation/Wiley-Blackwell, 1998)
      Increases in the cost of providing health insurance must have some effect on labor markets, either in lower wages, changes in the composition of employment, or both. Despite a presumption that most of this effect will be ...