Conference Agenda

Private pensions are the largest component of household wealth in the UK, and the vast majority of employees are automatically enrolled into workplace pension plans. Using employer-reported pension data linked to the population census, we document that Bangladeshi and Pakistani employees are around twice as likely to opt out of their workplace pension as employees from other ethnic backgrounds. Opting out means forfeiting employer pension contributions and tax subsidies, with potentially large financial consequences: we estimate that a typical Bangladeshi or Pakistani employee who consistently opts out would have around 60% higher retirement income if they instead saved in their workplace pension. These differences persist within firms and are not explained by economic differences across ethnic groups. Instead, we present a set of evidence pointing to the importance of Islamic religious beliefs in driving the higher opt-out rates, consistent with Islamic teachings on savings.

We offer new empirical facts and insights into the determinants, dynamics, and consequences of extreme poverty in an advanced market economy, based on a novel administrative data set from France’s largest food assistance charity that is unique in its comprehensive coverage of low-income households -- in particular of homeless individuals. First, extreme poverty is largely a transient phenomenon, but a very large fraction of households is at risk of falling into food and housing insecurity. Second, children and teens are vastly over-represented in food and housing insecurity relative to their share in the overall French population. Third, inflows are highly sensitive to local macroeconomic conditions and policies while outflows only depend on individual characteristics, with an especially strong duration dependence. Fourth, housing is a luxury good, with marginal propensities to consume and price elasticities equal to zero below a subsistence threshold.

Social scientists have long believed that income rank matters to people. Rank is not a fixed characteristic, however: we can choose whom to compare ourselves to, and we are big fish in some ponds, but smaller ones in others. We conducted an experiment that elicited the income rank beliefs of a representative sample of mid-career Finns in various reference distributions. Some had the rank in one distribution revealed to them at random, but others could choose what information to acquire. We characterize the choice of reference population and its implications for well-being. We find that almost half of respondents care most about rank within occupation, while fewer than six percent are interested in national rank. Instrumental motives predominate the choice of reference group. We compare the effects of information acquired by choice and received at random, and find little difference. Last, we show that information acquisition affects real behavior.

This study examines what drives policy change? How does policy change spread? and what brings policy change to an end? These are central questions in the field of public policy. To address these questions, we constructed a new database that covers policy changes across all Israeli local authorities from 1993 to 2025. This study proposes a fifth diffusion channel, in addition to the imitation, learning, competition, and coercion, which we will term "nudged-based Policy Change." This mode of policy diffusion describes a local authority that copy-paste a restriction parameter suggested by the central government for a specific tax discount and applies it to restrict a different discount. It is surprising to discover how widespread the diffusion in the form of Nudged-based policy change is. We found that 254 out of the total 1,138 are nudged-based policy change, and 592 reflect implicit learning. The rest are classified as imitation-based policy change.