1 option
Turning Workers into Savers? Incentives, Liquidity, and Choice in 401(k) Plan Design / Olivia S. Mitchell, Stephen P. Utkus, Tongxuan (Stella) Yang.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Mitchell, Olivia S.
- Series:
- Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w11726.
- NBER working paper series no. w11726
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
- Other Title:
- Turning Workers into Savers? Incentives, Liquidity, and Choice in 401
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2005.
- Summary:
- We develop a comprehensive model of 401(k) pension design that reflects the complex tax, savings, liquidity and investment incentives of such plans. Using a new dataset on some 500 plans covering nearly 740,000 workers, we show that employer matching contributions have only a modest impact on eliciting additional retirement saving. In the typical 401(k) plan, only 10 percent of non-highly-compensated workers are induced to save more by match incentives; and 30 percent fail to join their plan at all, despite the fact that the company-proffered match would grant them a real return premium of 1-5% above market rates if they contributed. Such indifference to retirement saving incentives cannot be attributed to liquidity or investment constraints. These results underscore the need for alternative approaches beyond matching contributions, if retirement saving is to become broader-based.
- Notes:
- Print version record
- October 2005.
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.