TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mitchell,Olivia S.
TI  - Worker Knowledge of Pension Provisions
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2414
PY  - 1987
Y2  - October 1987
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2414
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2414.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Olivia S. Mitchell
University of Pennsylvania
Wharton School
3620 Locust Walk, St 3000 SH-DH
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6302
Tel: 215-898-0424
Fax: 215/898-0310
E-Mail: mitchelo@wharton.upenn.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1988-03-01
AB  - This paper evaluates the quality of workers' information regarding pension offerings using both administrative records and worker reports of pension provisions. Missing and misinformation proves to be widespread. Unionized employees, higher income workers and those in large firms, the better educated, and those with greater seniority are better informed about their pensions. There are also demographic differences: nonwhites have less pension knowledge than whites, but women are better informed than men along several pension dimensions. Myopia about pension incentive structures is troubling since workers may save or consume suboptimally, change jobs, or retire earlier than they would have if equipped with better pension information. The prevalence of missing data should also be troubling to empirical pension analysts using data sets reporting workers' assessments of pension provisions.
ER  -