How do 401(k)s Affect Saving? Evidence from Changes in 401(k) Eligibility

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gelber, Alexander M.
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.3.4.103
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 103-122
• 关键词: Incentives

摘要

This paper investigates the effect of 401(k) eligibility on saving. To address the possibility that eligibility correlates across individuals with their unobserved tastes for saving, I examine a change in eligibility: some individuals are initially ineligible for their 401(k) but become eligible when they have worked at their firm long enough. I find that eligibility raises 401(k) balances. Other financial assets and net worth respond insignificantly to eligibility, but the confidence intervals do not rule out substantial responses. In response to eligibility, IRA assets increase, consistent with a crowd-in hypothesis, and accumulation of cars decreases.(JEL D14, E21, J26)