TY  - JOUR
AU  - Agnew, Julie
AU  - Hurwitz, Joshua
TI  - Financial Education and Choice in State Public Pension Systems
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18907
PY  - 2013
Y2  - March 2013
DO  - 10.3386/w18907
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18907
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18907.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Julie Agnew
Mason School of Business
College of William and Mary
P.O. Box 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23185
E-Mail: julie.agnew@mason.wm.edu

Joshua Hurwitz
National Bureau of Economic Research
1050 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02138
E-Mail: josh.hurwitz23@gmail.com
M1  - published as Julie Agnew, Josh Hurwitz. "Financial Education and Choice in State Public Pension Systems," in Robert Clark, Joshua Rauh, and Mark Duggan, editors, "Retirement Benefits for State and Local Employees: Designing Pension Plans for the Twenty-First Century" Elsevier, Journal of Public Economics, vol. 116  (2014)

M3  - presented at "State and Local Pensions Conference", August 17-18, 2012
AB  - As more and more public pension systems are shifting away from a defined benefit only framework, the complexity of the financial decisions facing public employees is increasing. This raises some concerns about the financial literacy of participants and their ability to make informed decisions. While surveys addressing financial education in private plans are available, little is known about what types of education and advice are offered in public plans. This paper fills this gap by presenting new results from the first National Public Pension Plan Financial Education Survey. The paper focuses specifically on primary defined contribution and hybrid plans. The results indicate that some form of education or advice is offered by every surveyed plan and that the sponsoring entity is actively involved in the development of the programs. However, it appears that legal uncertainties related to advice and education may be a problem for a few plans. In addition, more rigorous evaluation methods to test programs are needed. The paper concludes with suggestions for areas of future research.
ER  -