Would People Behave Differently If They Better Understood Social Security? Evidence From a Field Experiment / Jeffrey B. Liebman, Erzo F.P. Luttmer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Liebman, Jeffrey B.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Luttmer, Erzo F.P.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w17287.

NBER working paper series no. w17287

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.

Summary:

This paper presents the results of a field experiment in which a sample of older workers was randomized between a treatment group that was given information about key Social Security provisions and a control group that was not. The experiment was designed to examine whether it is possible to affect individual behavior using a relatively inexpensive informational intervention about the provisions of a public program and to explore the mechanisms underlying the behavior change. We find that our relatively mild intervention (sending an informational brochure and an invitation to a web-tutorial) increased labor force participation one year later by 4 percentage points relative to the control group mean of 74 percent and that this effect is driven by a 7.2 percentage point increase among female subjects. In addition to affecting actual labor supply behavior, the information intervention increased survey measures of the perceived returns to working longer, especially among female respondents.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2011.