How Do Behavioral Approaches to Increase Savings Compare? Evidence from Multiple Interventions in the U.S. Army

How can we compare approaches to increase retirement savings? Messaging interventions, active choice frameworks, and automatic enrollment all increase retirement savings, but evidence supporting these approaches spans widely different institutional settings, populations, and time periods. In this study, we use experimental and quasi-experimental variation in these approaches within a constant setting using interventions in the U.S. military during 2016–2018. We find large differences in the efficacy of these approaches, with active choice and automatic enrollment programs being about 10 and 100 times more effective than messaging interventions, respectively. We also collect novel data on program costs and generate estimates of cost-effectiveness for each program. We find that active choice and automatic enrollment are consistently more cost effective than any messaging interventions, active choice programs are the most cost-effective for small firms, and automatic enrollment is the most cost-effective program for larger firms.