تصمیمات بلندمدت پس انداز: اصلاحات مالی، اثرات همسالان و قومیت

In 2005, a drastic reform in the Israeli capital market shifted the power to choose savings vehicles from employers to individuals. Using a unique dataset from a large employer, this event provides us a rare window into individuals’ savings decisions and the effect of their social environment. In the first year following the reform's implementation, 7% of the employees switched out of the fund in which they all previously saved. Choice of fund was not associated with observable measures of fund performance, but was strongly affected by the employees’ social environment. Exploiting within-department variation in peer groups, we find that savings decisions were strongly influenced by the choices of co-workers from the same ethnic group. Interviews also point to the influence of non-professional colleagues.

Imagine a country in which long term savings instruments are provided solely through the employer. Then a reform is enacted and the choice is given to the individual. How will individuals respond? Which financial instruments will they choose? Will they improve on the choices made by the employer? How will they decide? These are not trivial questions. Population aging and the financial crisis have raised concerns regarding the process by which individuals make savings decisions and allocate their savings among different investment vehicles. Governments around the world are implementing various reforms aimed at improving the quality of long-term savings decisions, promoting competition in the financial sector and addressing fiscal imbalances. According to Holzmann (2012), between 1988 and 2008 twenty-nine countries introduced pension system reforms. An important input to the design of such reforms is a better understanding of the consequences of transferring greater responsibility to the individual.

Savings decisions are among the most important financial decisions most individuals make. Yet these decisions are not fully understood. This complicates the design of policy reforms to improve the quality of financial decisions. This paper exploits a large and detailed dataset that allows us to shed some light on how these decisions are made. Our first finding is that a drastic and highly publicized regulatory reform allowing savers to switch saving plans did not result in many savers actually switching. Most employees remained with the default option, and perhaps justifiably so. Furthermore, while the reform was followed by an increase in the number of funds, the increased choice given to consumers did not result in clearly improved terms. Data from the Israeli Ministry of Finance indicates that if anything, management fees have increased in the years following the reform. The average management fee in the provident fund industry in 1999–2004, just prior to the enactment of the reform, hovered between 0.45% and 0.52%. In 2007, the period we study, it was 0.65% and by 2009 it was over 0.8%.37 This pattern appears consistent with results from Mexico's privatized pension system launched in 1997. Fees in the newly launched system were remarkably high and firms did not seem to compete fiercely on management fees. Rather, they engaged in advertising to increase brand loyalty and actually reduce demand elasticity (Hastings et al., 2013a).