【题  目】How information shapes retirement saving: Experimental evidence from China’s Private Pension Account

【时  间】2026年04月22日（星期三）10:00-11:30

【地  点】后主楼1610会议室

【主讲人】娄汉林 讲  师（澳大利亚新南威尔士大学商学院经济系）

【主持人】徐  慧 副教授（北京师范大学经济与工商管理学院、北京师范大学人的发展经济学研究中心）

摘要：Standard life-cycle models assume that individuals possess sufficient information to assess the long-term financial consequences of retirement saving. In practice, however, information frictions may hinder pension participation and voluntary contributions. This paper studies how different types of financial consequence information affect individuals’ interest in a new defined contribution pension product in China, the Private Pension Account (PPA). We conducted an online experimental survey in August 2025 with a sample of 1,540 individuals aged 25 to 45 who were enrolled in the Basic Pension Insurance and earned at least RMB 120,000 per year. Participants were randomly assigned to a control group or to one of four information treatments providing personalized information on tax incentives, projected investment returns, aggregate retirement benefits, or a comparison between retirement saving and mortgage prepayment. We compare individuals’ stated interest in the PPA across groups. We find that information interventions highlighting long-term financial consequences significantly increase interest in the PPA. Treatments presenting return projections, aggregate benefit information, or mortgage-related comparisons raise the likelihood of strong interest, while information on tax incentives alone has a limited average effect, but matters for specific subgroups with higher tax exposure. We document substantial heterogeneity in treatment effects by financial literacy, age, residential location, and prior engagement with the PPA. Our findings contribute to the behavioral and public economics literature by providing early experimental evidence from an emerging defined contribution pension system and offer insights into how personalized information and financial literacy interact to shape retirement saving decisions.

报告人简介：

娄汉林， 2022年获得澳大利亚悉尼科技大学经济学博士学位，现任澳大利亚新南威尔士大学商学院经济系研究员。其主要研究方向为行为经济学，实验金融，退休金融等，并发表研究成果于Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 等期刊。