American Economic Journal:
Economic Policy
ISSN 1945-7731 (Print) | ISSN 1945-774X (Online)
Would People Behave Differently If They Better Understood Social Security? Evidence from a Field Experiment
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
vol. 7,
no. 1, February 2015
(pp. 275–99)
Abstract
This paper presents the results of a randomized field experiment that provided information about key Social Security features to older workers. 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. (JEL C93, D12, H55)Citation
Liebman, Jeffrey B., and Erzo F. P. Luttmer. 2015. "Would People Behave Differently If They Better Understood Social Security? Evidence from a Field Experiment." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 7 (1): 275–99. DOI: 10.1257/pol.20120081Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C93 Field Experiments
- D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
- H55 Social Security and Public Pensions
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