TY  - JOUR
AU  - Beshears,John
AU  - Choi,James J.
AU  - Laibson,David
AU  - Madrian,Brigitte C.
TI  - The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Savings Outcomes: Evidence from the United States
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12009
PY  - 2006
Y2  - February 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12009
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12009.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John Beshears
Stanford Graduate School of Business
655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305-7298
Tel: 650/723-6792
E-Mail: beshears@stanford.edu

James J. Choi
Yale School of Management
135 Prospect Street
P.O. Box 208200
New Haven, CT 06520-8200
E-Mail: james.choi@yale.edu

David Laibson
Department of Economics
Littauer M-12
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-3402
Fax: 617/495-8570
E-Mail: dlaibson@gmail.com

Brigitte C. Madrian
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617-495-8917
Fax: 617-496-5960
E-Mail: Brigitte_Madrian@Harvard.edu
M1  - published as John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian. "The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United States," in Jeffrey Brown, Jeffrey Liebman and David A. Wise, editors, "Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment" University of Chicago Press (2009)

AB  - 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 evidence on how defaults impact retirement savings outcomes at all stages of the savings lifecycle, including savings plan participation, savings rates, asset allocation, and post-retirement savings distributions. The paper then discusses why defaults have such a tremendous impact on savings outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role of public policy towards retirement saving when defaults matter.
ER  -