IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ate/journl/ajbev6i3-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Temptation and Retirement Accounts: A Story of Time Inconsistency and Bounded Rationality

Author

Listed:
  • Florina Salaghe
  • Dimitra Papadovasilaki
  • Federico Guerrero
  • James Sundali

Abstract

Research shows that American workers tend to under-save for retirement. Some studies attribute the under-saving to a lack of self-control and time inconsistent saving plans, while others use the bounded rationality of retirement account holders as an alternative explanation. In this paper we ran a laboratory experiment using subjects residing in the U.S., to further explore the relationship between under-saving for retirement and investment decisions, in the context of an asset allocation game. A theoretical framework that can account for both time inconsistent (investment) behavior and boundedly rational (investment) choices is given by the “absent-minded driver’s (AMD) paradox†decision-making game of Piccione and Rubinstein (1997). The main idea of the AMD paradox is that (investment) plans that were optimal at the planning stage may no longer be optimal at decision time even if no new information and/or no change in preferences occurs. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, our paper is the first to apply the AMD paradox to the study of asset allocation decisions in the laboratory. Second, we find that temptation and potentially boundedly rational choices seem to affect a significant number of subjects by inducing them to abandon their optimal investment plans in favor of luring potential returns offered by riskier assets. (JEL D14, D15, G11, C91)

Suggested Citation

  • Florina Salaghe & Dimitra Papadovasilaki & Federico Guerrero & James Sundali, 2020. "Temptation and Retirement Accounts: A Story of Time Inconsistency and Bounded Rationality," Athens Journal of Business & Economics, Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), vol. 6(3), pages 173-198, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ate:journl:ajbev6i3-1
    DOI: 10.30958/ajbe.6-3-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.athensjournals.gr/business/2020-6-3-1-Salaghe.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.30958/ajbe.6-3-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher D. Carroll, 2001. "A Theory of the Consumption Function, with and without Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 23-45, Summer.
    2. Dybvig, Philip H. & Liu, Hong, 2010. "Lifetime consumption and investment: Retirement and constrained borrowing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 885-907, May.
    3. Alexander L. Brown & Zhikang Eric Chua & Colin F. Camerer, 2009. "Learning and Visceral Temptation in Dynamic Saving Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 197-231.
    4. Piccione, Michele & Rubinstein, Ariel, 1997. "On the Interpretation of Decision Problems with Imperfect Recall," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 3-24, July.
    5. Jody Overland & Christopher D. Carroll & David N. Weil, 2000. "Saving and Growth with Habit Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 341-355, June.
    6. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & John Leahy & Tom Tyler, 2007. "Measuring Self-Control Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 966-972, June.
    7. Steven A. Sass & Jorge D. Ramos-Mercado, 2015. "Are Americans of All Ages and Income Levels Shortsighted About Their Finances?," Issues in Brief ib2015-9, Center for Retirement Research.
    8. B. Douglas Bernheim & Jonathan Skinner & Steven Weinberg, 2001. "What Accounts for the Variation in Retirement Wealth among U.S. Households?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 832-857, September.
    9. Ernst Fehr & Peter K. Zych, 1998. "Do Addicts Behave Rationally?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(3), pages 643-661, September.
    10. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1999. "Risk Aversion or Myopia? Choices in Repeated Gambles and Retirement Investments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(3), pages 364-381, March.
    11. Mitchell, Olivia S. & Shea, Richard C. (ed.), 2016. "Reimagining Pensions: The Next 40 Years," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198755449.
    12. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2003. "Wealth Accumulation and the Propensity to Plan," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1007-1047.
    13. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia Mitchell, 2006. "Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness: Evidence and Implications for Financial Education Programs," Working Papers wp144, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    14. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    15. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    16. Laurence J. Kotlikoff (ed.), 2001. "Essays on Saving, Bequests, Altruism, and Life-Cycle Planning," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262112620, April.
    17. Papadovasilaki, Dimitra & Guerrero, Federico & Sundali, James, 2018. "The effect of early and salient investment experiences on subsequent asset allocations—An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 1-19.
    18. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S Mitchelli, 2007. "Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness: Evidence and Implications for Financial Education," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 42(1), pages 35-44, January.
    19. Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1984. "Life-Cycle Effects on Consumption and Retirement," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(3), pages 353-370, July.
    20. Farhi, Emmanuel & Panageas, Stavros, 2007. "Saving and investing for early retirement: A theoretical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 87-121, January.
    21. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard Thaler, 2007. "Heuristics and Biases in Retirement Savings Behavior," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 81-104, Summer.
    22. T. Parker Ballinger & Michael G. Palumbo & Nathaniel T. Wilcox, 2003. "Precautionary saving and social learning across generations: an experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(490), pages 920-947, October.
    23. Alicia H. Munnell & Wenliang Hou & Anthony Webb, 2014. "NRRI Update Shows Half Still Falling Short," Issues in Brief ib2014-20, Center for Retirement Research.
    24. Richard W. Johnson & Karen E. Smith & Damir Cosic & Claire Xiaozhi Wang, 2017. "Retirement Prospects for the Millennials: What is the Early Prognosis?," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2017-17, Center for Retirement Research.
    25. Kyoung Jin Choi & Gyoocheol Shim & Yong Hyun Shin, 2008. "Optimal Portfolio, Consumption‐Leisure And Retirement Choice Problem With Ces Utility," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 445-472, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maarten C.J. van Rooij & Annamaria Lusardi & Rob J.M. Alessie, 2012. "Financial Literacy, Retirement Planning and Household Wealth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 449-478, May.
    2. John Gathergood & Joerg Weber, 2012. "Self-Control, Financial Literacy and Co-Holding Puzzle," Discussion Papers 2012-02, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    3. John Duffy & Yue Li, 2016. "Lifecycle Consumption Under Different Income Profiles: Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 161702, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    4. Gathergood, John & Weber, Jörg, 2014. "Self-control, financial literacy & the co-holding puzzle," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 455-469.
    5. Gopi Shah Goda & Matthew Levy & Colleen Flaherty Manchester & Aaron Sojourner & Joshua Tasoff, 2019. "Predicting Retirement Savings Using Survey Measures Of Exponential‐Growth Bias And Present Bias," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(3), pages 1636-1658, July.
    6. Gopi Shah Goda & Matthew R. Levy & Colleen Flaherty Manchester & Aaron Sojourner & Joshua Tasoff, 2015. "The Role of Time Preferences and Exponential-Growth Bias in Retirement Savings," NBER Working Papers 21482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    8. Gathergood, John & Weber, Jörg, 2017. "Financial literacy, present bias and alternative mortgage products," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 58-83.
    9. Vicki L. Bogan & Angela R. Fertig, 2018. "Mental health and retirement savings: Confounding issues with compounding interest," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 404-425, February.
    10. Zinman, Jonathan, 2009. "Debit or credit?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 358-366, February.
    11. Kay Blaufus & Michael Milde, 2021. "Tax Misperceptions and the Effect of Informational Tax Nudges on Retirement Savings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 5011-5031, August.
    12. Blake, David & Cairns, Andrew & Dowd, Kevin, 2008. "Turning pension plans into pension planes: What investment strategy designers of defined contribution pension plans can learn from commercial aircraft designers," MPRA Paper 33749, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Gathergood, John & Wylie, Daniel, 2018. "Why are some households so poorly insured?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 1-12.
    14. Goda, Gopi Shah & Levy, Matthew R. & Manchester, Colleen Flaherty & Sojourner, Aaron & Tasoff, Joshua, 2020. "Who is a passive saver under opt-in and auto-enrollment?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 301-321.
    15. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2004. "The Absent-Minded Consumer," NBER Working Papers 10216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Raquel Fonseca & Simon Lord, 2020. "Canadian Gender Gap in Financial Literacy: Confidence Matters," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 235(4), pages 153-182, December.
    17. Choi, Kyoung Jin & Jeon, Junkee & Koo, Hyeng Keun, 2022. "Intertemporal preference with loss aversion: Consumption and risk-attitude," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    18. Duffy, John & Li, Yue, 2019. "Lifecycle consumption under different income profiles: Evidence and theory," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 74-94.
    19. Catalina Estrada‐Mejia & Ellen Peters & Nathan F. Dieckmann & Marcel Zeelenberg & Marieke De Vries & David P. Baker, 2020. "Schooling, numeracy, and wealth accumulation: A study involving an agrarian population," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 648-674, June.
    20. Koehler, Derek J. & Langstaff, Jesse & Liu, Wu-Qi, 2015. "A simulated financial savings task for studying consumption and retirement decision making," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 89-97.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Absent-Mindedness; Asset Allocations; Imperfect Recall; Retirement Saving; Time Inconsistency; Temptation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ate:journl:ajbev6i3-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Afrodete Papanikou (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.athensjournals.gr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.