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- March 2025
- Article
Optimal Illiquidity
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Clayton, Christopher Harris, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We study the socially optimal level of illiquidity in an economy populated by households with taste shocks and present bias with naive beliefs. The government chooses mandatory contributions to accounts, each with a different pre-retirement withdrawal penalty.... View Details
- January 2025
- Article
Automatic Enrollment with a 12% Default Contribution Rate
By: John Beshears, Ruofei Guo, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and James J. Choi
We study a retirement savings plan with a default contribution rate of 12% of income, which is much higher than previously studied defaults. Twenty-five percent of employees had not opted out of this default 12 months after hire; a literature review finds that the... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Smaller than We Thought? The Effect of Automatic Savings Policies
By: James J. Choi, David Laibson, Jordan Cammarota, Richard Lombardo and John Beshears
Medium- and long-run dynamics undermine the effect of automatic enrollment and default savings-rate auto-escalation on retirement savings. Our analysis of 401(k) plans incorporates the facts that employees frequently leave firms (often before matching contributions... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Does Pension Automatic Enrollment Increase Debt? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Experiment
By: John Beshears, Matthew Blakstad, James J. Choi, Christopher Firth, John Gathergood, David Laibson, Richard Notley, Jesal D. Sheth, Will Sandbrook and Neil Stewart
Does automatic enrollment into retirement saving increase household debt? We study the randomized roll-out of automatic enrollment pensions to ~160,000 employers in the United Kingdom with 2-29 employees. We find that the additional savings generated through automatic... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Employer-Based Short-Term Savings Accounts
By: Sarah Holmes Berk, John Beshears, Jay Garg, James J. Choi and David Laibson
We study the introduction of a choice architecture design intended to increase short-term savings among employees at five U.K. firms. Employees were offered the opportunity to opt into a payroll deduction program that auto-deposits funds from each paycheck into a... View Details
- 2023
- Article
A Randomized Trial of Behavioral Nudges Delivered through Text Messages to Increase Influenza Vaccination among Patients with an Upcoming Primary Care Visit
By: Mitesh S. Patel, Katherine L. Milkman, Linnea Gandhi, Heather N. Graci, Dena Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Jake Rothschild, Modupe Akinola, John Beshears, Jonathan E. Bogard, Alison Buttenheim, Christopher Chabris, Gretchen B. Chapman, James J. Choi, Hengchen Dai, Craig R. Fox, Amir Goren, Matthew D. Hilchey, Jillian Hmurovic, Leslie John, Dean Karlan, Melanie Kim, David Laibson, Cait Lamberton, Brigitte C. Madrian, Michelle N. Meyer, Maria Modanu, Jimin Nam, Todd Rogers, Renante Rondina, Silvia Saccardo, Maheen Shermohammed, Dilip Soman, Jehan Sparks, Caleb Warren, Megan Weber, Ron Berman, Chalanda N. Evans, Seung Hyeong Lee, Christopher K. Snider, Eli Tsukayama, Christophe Van den Bulte, Kevin G. Volpp and Angela L. Duckworth
Purpose: To evaluate if nudges delivered by text message prior to an upcoming primary care visit can increase influenza vaccination rates.
Design: Randomized, controlled trial.
Setting: Two health systems in the Northeastern US between September 2020 and... View Details
Design: Randomized, controlled trial.
Setting: Two health systems in the Northeastern US between September 2020 and... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Automating Short-Term Payroll Savings: Evidence from Two Large U.K. Experiments
By: Sarah Holmes Berk, James J. Choi, Jay Garg, John Beshears and David Laibson
Automatic enrollment is often used to increase retirement savings. What are the effects of using it (or, alternatively, requiring an active enrollment choice) to increase short-term savings? We evaluate two experiments in the U.K. at employers that enable workers to... View Details
- Article
Present Bias Causes and Then Dissipates Auto-enrollment Savings Effects
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Peter Maxted
Present bias causes procrastination, which leads households to stick with auto-enrollment defaults. However, present bias also engenders overconsumption. Separation from each employer generates a rollover of 401(k) balances to an individual retirement account (IRA)... View Details
- February 2022
- Article
Borrowing to Save? The Impact of Automatic Enrollment on Debt
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and William L. Skimmyhorn
Does automatic enrollment into a retirement plan increase financial distress due to increased borrowing outside the plan? We study a natural experiment created when the U.S. Army began automatically enrolling newly hired civilian employees into the Thrift Savings Plan.... View Details
- Article
A Megastudy of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients to Get Vaccinated at an Upcoming Doctor's Appointment
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Modupe Akinola, John Beshears, Jonathan E. Bogard, Alison Buttenheim, Christopher F. Chabris, Gretchen B. Chapman, James J. Choi, Hengchen Dai, Craig R. Fox, Amir Goren, Matthew D. Hilchey, Jillian Hmurovic, Leslie K. John, Dean Karlan, Melanie Kim, David Laibson, Cait Lamberton, Brigitte C. Madrian, Michelle N. Meyer, Maria Modanu, Jimin Nam, Todd Rogers, Renante Rondina, Silvia Saccardo, Maheen Shermohammed, Dilip Soman, Jehan Sparks, Caleb Warren, Megan Weber, Ron Berman, Chalanda N. Evans, Christopher K. Snider, Eli Tsukayama, Christophe Van den Bulte, Kevin G. Volpp and Angela L. Duckworth
Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via... View Details
Keywords: Vaccination; COVID-19; Nudge; Influenza; Field Experiment; Health; Communication Strategy; Behavior
- March 2021
- Article
Active Choice, Implicit Defaults, and the Incentive to Choose
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Home-delivered prescriptions have no delivery charge and lower copayments than prescriptions picked up at a pharmacy. Nevertheless, when home delivery is offered on an opt-in basis, the take-up rate is only 6%. We study a program that makes active choice of either home... View Details
- August 2020
- Article
Do Physician Incentives Increase Patient Medication Adherence?
By: Edward Kong, John Beshears, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, Kevin Volpp, George Loewenstein, Jonathan Kolstad and James J. Choi
We conducted a randomized experiment (911 primary care practices and 8,935 nonadherent patients) to test the effect of paying physicians for increasing patient medication adherence in three drug classes: diabetes medication, antihypertensives, and statins. We measured... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Optimal Illiquidity
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Clayton, Christopher Harris, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We calculate the socially optimal level of illiquidity in an economy populated by households with taste shocks and naive present bias. The government chooses mandatory contributions to accounts, each witha different pre-retirement withdrawal penalty. Collected... View Details
Keywords: Illiquidity; Commitment; Flexibility; Savings; Social Security; Retirement; Government Legislation; Taxation; Saving
- 2020
- Chapter
Building Emergency Savings Through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-Day Savings Accounts
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, J. Mark Iwry, David C. John, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Roughly half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. When financial shocks occur during their working life, many of these households tap into their retirement savings accounts. We explore the practical considerations and challenges associated with helping households... View Details
- March 2020
- Article
Which Early Withdrawal Penalty Attracts the Most Deposits to a Commitment Savings Account?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Harris, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Jung Sakong
Previous research has shown that some people voluntarily use commitment contracts that restrict their own choice sets. We study how people divide money between two accounts: a liquid account that permits unrestricted withdrawals and a commitment account that is... View Details
- 2018
- Chapter
Behavioral Household Finance
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
This chapter provides an overview of household finance. The first part summarizes key facts regarding household financial behavior, emphasizing empirical regularities that are inconsistent with the standard classical economic model and discussing extensions of the... View Details
- July 31, 2017
- Article
A Commitment Contract to Achieve Virologic Suppression in Poorly Adherent Patients with HIV/AIDS
By: Marcella Alsan, John Beshears, Wendy S. Armstrong, James J. Choi, Brigitte C. Madrian, Minh Ly T. Nguyen, Carlos Del Rio, David Laibson and Vincent C. Marconi
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 pilot randomized clinical trial and a... View Details
- Article
Does Front-Loading Taxation Increase Savings?: Evidence from Roth 401(k) Introductions
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
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 common before-tax 401(k) contribution is... View Details
- June 2017
- Article
Does Aggregated Returns Disclosure Increase Portfolio Risk Taking?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
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 one-year) historical return distributions. In... View Details
- June 2016
- Article
Vaccination Rates Are Associated with Functional Proximity but Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Gwendolyn I. Reynolds
Background: Routine annual influenza vaccinations are recommended for persons 6 months of age and older, but less than half of U.S. adults get vaccinated. Many employers offer employees free influenza vaccinations at workplace clinics, but even then take-up is... View Details