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Which early withdrawal penalty attracts the most deposits to a commitment savings account?

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  • Beshears, John
  • Choi, James J.
  • Harris, Christopher
  • Laibson, David
  • Madrian, Brigitte C.
  • Sakong, Jung

Abstract

Previous research has shown that some people voluntarily use commitment contracts that restrict their own choice sets. We study how people divide money between two accounts: a liquid account that permits unrestricted withdrawals and a commitment account that is randomly assigned in a between-subject design to have either a 10% early withdrawal penalty, or a 20% early withdrawal penalty, or not to allow early withdrawals at all (i.e., an infinite penalty). When the liquid account and the commitment account pay the same interest rate, higher early-withdrawal penalties attract more commitment account deposits. This pattern is predicted by the hypothesis that some participants are partially- or fully-sophisticated present-biased agents. Such agents perceive that higher penalties generate greater scope for commitment by disincentivizing (penalized) early withdrawals. The experiment also shows that when the commitment account pays a higher interest rate than the liquid account, the positive empirical slope relating penalties and commitment deposits is flattened, suggesting that naïve present-biased agents or agents with standard exponential discounting are also in our sample. Across all of our experimental treatments, higher early withdrawal penalties on the commitment account sometimes increase and never reduce allocations to the commitment account.

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  • Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Harris, Christopher & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C. & Sakong, Jung, 2020. "Which early withdrawal penalty attracts the most deposits to a commitment savings account?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:183:y:2020:i:c:s0047272720300086
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104144
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    7. Fadlon, Itzik & Laibson, David, 2022. "Paternalism and pseudo-rationality: An illustration based on retirement savings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    8. John Beshears & James J. Choi & Christopher Clayton & Christopher Harris & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2020. "Optimal Illiquidity," NBER Working Papers 27459, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. López, Fernando & Rosas, Guillermo, 2022. "COVID-19 and attitudes towards early withdrawal of pension funds: The role of trust and political ideology," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    10. Andrej Woerner, 2023. "Overcoming Time Inconsistency with a Matched Bet: Theory and Evidence from Exercising," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 476, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    11. Timmons, Shane & Robertson, Deirdre & Lunn, Pete, 2022. "Combining nudges and boosts to increase precautionary saving: A large-scale field experiment," Papers WP722, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    12. Beshears, John & Kosowsky, Harry, 2020. "Nudging: Progress to date and future directions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 161(S), pages 3-19.
    13. Todd Messer, 2022. "Financial Failure and Depositor Quality: Evidence from Building and Loan Associations in California," International Finance Discussion Papers 1354, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Ek, Claes & Samahita, Margaret, 2023. "Too much commitment? An online experiment with tempting YouTube content," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 21-38.
    15. Axelle Arquié, 2023. "Fire Sales and Bank Runs in the Presence of a Saving Allocation by Depositors," Working Papers 2023-09, CEPII research center.
    16. Bateman, Hazel & Dobrescu, Loretti I. & Liu, Junhao & Newell, Ben R. & Thorp, Susan, 2023. "Determinants of early-access to retirement savings: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    17. Manuel A. Utset, 2023. "Time-Inconsistent Bargaining and Cross-Commitments," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, April.
    18. Guilherme Lichand & Juliette Thibaud, 2020. "Parent-bias," ECON - Working Papers 369, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jun 2022.
    19. Bachmann, Kremena & Lot, Andre & Xu, Xiaogeng & Hens, Thorsten, 2023. "Experimental Research on Retirement Decision-Making: Evidence from Replications," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    20. Andrej Woerner, 2021. "Overcoming Time Inconsistency with a Matched Bet: Theory and Evidence from Exercising," CESifo Working Paper Series 9503, CESifo.
    21. Woerner, Andrej, 2023. "Overcoming Time Inconsistency with a Matched Bet: Theory and Evidence from Exercising," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277711, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    22. Andersen, Torben M. & Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Liu, Pan, 2023. "Commitment and partial naïveté: Early withdrawal penalties on retirement accounts," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

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