Assisted Savings for Retirement: An Experimental Analysis

This paper evaluates the benefit of a basic retirement savings program. It considers a life- cycle experiment with interest paid on a safe asset and returns on a risky asset that in- duce a stationary fundamental value. The private savings treatment provides an income stream that terminates at retirement. Observed consumption starts too high and finishes low in later periods. The assisted savings treatment smooths income over all periods, which dampens asset price bubbles and improves consumption profiles. This improvement persists in treatments done without asset trading, but disappears with sharply reduced interest rates that simplify present value considerations.