IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v108y2026i4p1124-1133.html

Information Transmission in Groups: Peer Influence in High-Stakes, Irreversible Financial Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Tom Ahn

    (Naval Postgraduate School)

  • Jesse M. Cunha

    (Naval Postgraduate School)

  • Patrick Veith

    (Department of the Navy (Ret.))

Abstract

We study the influence of workplace peers on a high-stakes, irreversible retirement plan choice. Midcareer U.S. military personnel choose between higher future pension payouts or an immediate bonus plus lower future payouts. With peers defined as those who have locked in their choices and personnel assignment rules ensuring that peer groups are exogenously formed, we capture the causal impact of peers. Greater peer take-up of the bonus, which is difficult to compare to the alternative plan but often extremely costly over one’s lifetime, discourages choosers from selecting the bonus. Peers have special impact within professional, race, and gender groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Tom Ahn & Jesse M. Cunha & Patrick Veith, 2026. "Information Transmission in Groups: Peer Influence in High-Stakes, Irreversible Financial Decisions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 108(4), pages 1124-1133, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:108:y:2026:i:4:p:1124-1133
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01426
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01426
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/rest_a_01426?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    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:tpr:restat:v:108:y:2026:i:4:p:1124-1133. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.