Increasing the effectiveness of financial education in the workplace

Abstract

effectiveness of financial education and saving programs ” (University of Chicago Press), and the article “Household saving behavior: The role of financial literacy, information and financial education programs, ” written for the conference and conference volume “Implications of Behavioral Economics for Economic Policy ” (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, September 27–28, 2007). She would like to thank participants to the U.S. International Conference on Financial Education, Washington, D.C., for their comments and Harvard Business School for its hospitality while writing this paper. 1 More than ever before, individuals are in charge of their own financial security after retirement. With the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension plans that has occurred over the past twenty years, individuals increasingly have to decide how much to save and how to allocate their pension wealth. The necessary decisions are daunting and are made more difficult by the increased complexity of financial instruments; investors have to deal with a vast array of new and sophisticated financial products. Saving decisions now require not only that individuals be informed about their pensions, but also that they be knowledgeable about finance and economics