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Making Savers Winners: An Overview of Prize-Linked Savings Products

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  • Melissa Schettini Kearney
  • Peter Tufano
  • Jonathan Guryan
  • Erik Hurst

Abstract

For over three centuries and throughout the globe, people have enthusiastically bought savings products that incorporate lottery elements. In lieu of paying traditional interest to all investors proportional to their balances, these Prize Linked Savings (PLS) accounts distribute periodic sizeable payments to some investors using a lottery-like drawing where an investor's chances of winning are proportional to one's account balances. This paper describes these products, provides examples of their use, argues for their potential popularity in the United States --especially to low and moderate income non-savers--and discusses the laws and regulations in the United States that largely prohibit their issuance.

Suggested Citation

  • Melissa Schettini Kearney & Peter Tufano & Jonathan Guryan & Erik Hurst, 2010. "Making Savers Winners: An Overview of Prize-Linked Savings Products," NBER Working Papers 16433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16433
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett & Ruben Hernandez-Murillo, 2006. "The geography, economics, and politics of lottery adoption," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 88(May), pages 165-180.
    2. Kearney, Melissa Schettini, 2005. "State lotteries and consumer behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2269-2299, December.
    3. Mauro Guillén & Adrian Tschoegl, 2002. "Banking on Gambling: Banks and Lottery-Linked Deposit Accounts," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 21(3), pages 219-231, June.
    4. Murphy, Anne L., 2005. "Lotteries in the 1690s: Investment or Gamble?," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(02), pages 227-246, October.
    5. Morduch, Jonathan, 1999. "Between the State and the Market: Can Informal Insurance Patch the Safety Net?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 14(2), pages 187-207, August.
    6. Peter Tufano & Nick Maynard & Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, 2008. "Consumer Demand for Prize-Linked Savings: A Preliminary Analysis," Harvard Business School Working Papers 08-061, Harvard Business School.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Annamaria Lusardi & Daniel Schneider & Peter Tufano, 2011. "Financially Fragile Households: Evidence and Implications," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(1 (Spring), pages 83-150.
    2. Filiz-Ozbay, Emel & Guryan, Jonathan & Hyndman, Kyle & Kearney, Melissa & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2015. "Do lottery payments induce savings behavior? Evidence from the lab," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1-24.
    3. Nicholas C. Barberis, 2012. "Thirty Years of Prospect Theory in Economics: A Review and Assessment," NBER Working Papers 18621, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Joaquín Gómez Miñambres & Mark Schneider, 2019. "Carrots and Sticks: Optimal Contracting with Skewness Preference and Ambiguity Aversion," Working Papers 19-02, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    5. Brigitte C. Madrian, 2014. "Applying Insights from Behavioral Economics to Policy Design," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 663-688, August.
    6. Felipe S. Iachan & Plamen T. Nenov & Alp Simsek, 2021. "The Choice Channel of Financial Innovation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 333-372, April.
    7. Shawn Cole & Benjamin Iverson & Peter Tufano, 2022. "Can Gambling Increase Savings? Empirical Evidence on Prize-Linked Savings Accounts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(5), pages 3282-3308, May.
    8. Marco Fabbri & Paolo Nicola Barbieri & Maria Bigoni, 2019. "Ride Your Luck! A Field Experiment on Lottery-Based Incentives for Compliance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4336-4348, September.
    9. Crossley, Thomas F. & Low, Hamish & Smith, Sarah, 2016. "Do consumers gamble to convexify?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 276-291.
    10. Vernon Loke & Laura Choi & Margaret Libby, 2015. "Increasing Youth Financial Capability: An Evaluation of the MyPath Savings Initiative," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 97-126, March.
    11. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2011. "The Outlook for Financial Literacy," NBER Working Papers 17077, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Robert Ostling & Erik Lindqvist & David Cesarini & Joseph Briggs, 2015. "Wealth and Stock Market Participation: Estimating the Causal Effect From Swedish Lotteries," 2015 Meeting Papers 806, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Nicholas C. Barberis, 2013. "Thirty Years of Prospect Theory in Economics: A Review and Assessment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 173-196, Winter.
    14. Tufano, Peter & De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel & Maynard, Nick, 2011. "U.S. consumer demand for prize-linked savings: New evidence on a new product," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 116-118, May.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • K3 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law

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