IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2002-33.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nature or nurture: why do 401(k) participants save differently than other workers?

Author

Abstract

Participants in 401(k) plans are more likely than other workers to list \"retirement\" as their main reason for saving, to hold individual retirement accounts and to invest in the stock market. There are two possible reasons for these differences: (1) workers who like to save choose to participate in the program; or (2) 401(k) participation educates workers about investing. I disentangle these explanations using the 1983-1989 Survey of Consumer Finances. I find that 401(k) participants have a greater interest in saving for retirement than other workers, suggesting that extrapolating from their saving behavior to that of the workforce at large could be misleading. 401(k) participation also appears to increase awareness of retirement saving, but the gains are largest among workers who already prioritize retirement saving.

Suggested Citation

  • Karen M. Pence, 2002. "Nature or nurture: why do 401(k) participants save differently than other workers?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-33, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2002-33
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2002/200233/200233abs.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2002/200233/200233pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tansel, Aysit & Öztürk, Ceyhan & Erdil, Erkan, 2021. "The Impact of Body Mass Index on Growth, Schooling, Productivity, and Savings: A Cross-Country Study," IZA Discussion Papers 14727, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Mitchell, Olivia S. & Utkus, Stephen P. & Yang, Tongxuan (Stella), 2007. "Turning Workers Into Savers? Incentives, Liquidity, and Choice in 401(K) Plan Design," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 60(3), pages 469-489, September.
    3. Gene Amromin, 2008. "Precautionary Savings Motives and Tax Efficiency of Household Portfolios: An Empirical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 22, pages 5-41, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Karen E Dynan & Donald L Kohn, 2007. "The Rise in US Household Indebtedness: Causes and Consequences," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Christopher Kent & Jeremy Lawson (ed.),The Structure and Resilience of the Financial System, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    5. Karen E. Dynan & Donald L. Kohn, 2007. "The rise in U.S. household indebtedness: causes and consequences," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-37, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Ellis Connolly, 2007. "The Effect of the Australian Superannuation Guarantee on Household Saving Behaviour," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2007-08, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    7. Callan, Tim & Keane, Claire & Walsh, John R., 2009. "Pension Policy: New Evidence on Key Issues," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS14, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social security;

    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:fip:fedgfe:2002-33. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    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.