Working Paper: NBER ID: w8885
Authors: Esther Duflo; Emmanuel Saez
Abstract: This paper analyzes a randomized experiment to shed light on the role of information and social interactions in employees' decisions to enroll in a Tax Deferred Account (TDA) retirement plan within a large university. The experiment encouraged a random sample of employees in a subset of departments to attend a benefits information fair organized by the university, by promising a monetary reward for attendance. The experiment more than tripled the attendance rate of these treated individuals (relative to controls), and doubled that of untreated individuals within departments where some individuals were treated. TDA enrollment 5 and 11 months after the fair was significantly higher in departments where some individuals were treated than in departments where nobody was treated. However, the effect on TDA enrollment is almost as large for individuals in treated departments who did not receive the encouragement as for those who did. We provide three interpretations, differential treatment effects, social network effects, and motivational reward effects, to account for these results.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: D83; I22
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Social network effects (D85) | TDA enrollment decisions (I29) |
| Attendance at the benefits fair (J68) | Attendance rates at the fair (Y10) |
| Attendance rates at the fair (Y10) | TDA enrollment decisions (I29) |
| Treated individuals (I12) | TDA enrollment 5 and 11 months after the fair (I24) |
| Encouragement letter (Y20) | TDA enrollment decisions (I29) |