Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/196761 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12263
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper examines two behavioral factors that diminish people's ability to value a life-time income stream or annuity, drawing on a survey of about 4,000 adults in a U.S. nationally representative sample. By experimentally varying the degree of complexity, we provide the first causal evidence that increasing the complexity of the annuity choice reduces respondents' ability to value the annuity, measured by the difference between the sell and buy values people assign to the annuity. We also find that people's ability to value an annuity increases when we experimentally induce them to think jointly about the annuitization decision as well as how quickly or slowly to spend down assets in retirement. Accordingly, we conclude that narrow choice bracketing is an impediment to annuitization, yet this impediment can be mitigated with a relatively straightforward intervention.
Subjects: 
pension
annuity
retirement income
Social Security
cognition
behavioral
JEL: 
D14
D91
G11
H55
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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