The Silent Course of Financial Mistakes
By Annamaria Lusardi
29 December 2009 @ 04:58 pm EDT
One of the problems with financial mistakes is that they can go unnoticed for a long time before a crisis erupts. For example, one could spend many years undersaving for retirement only to discover at age sixty-five that one has not accumulated enough to afford a comfortable retirement. But prior to such a discovery there are no signals, no warnings: no bells go off to warn about lack of savings, no statements caution "careful, this amount of savings seems low for your age." In some of my work I have found that people start planning for retirement or make changes to their retirement savings accounts when they witness negative shocks to those around them (older siblings or parents) but, clearly, relying on such signals is insufficient.