Using Financial Innovation to Support Savers: From Coercion to Excitement

59 Pages Posted: 16 Apr 2008

See all articles by Peter Tufano

Peter Tufano

Harvard Business School; University of Oxford, Said Business School

Daniel Schneider

Princeton University

Date Written: April 14, 2008

Abstract

We review a wide variety of programs that support savings by families, in particular by low- and moderate-income families. These programs range from ones that literally compel families to save, to those that make it hard not to save, make it easier to save, provide financial incentives to induce savings, leverage social networks to support savers, and finally, to programs that excite people to saving. These programs involve a number of different stakeholders, including governmental entities, social intermediaries, non-profit organizations, and for-profit firms including financial institutions. They embody a number of different assumptions about incentives, drawing from economics, psychology, and sociology. We describe examples of each program and provide some information on their economics and effectiveness. Our goal is not to identify the "best" program, but rather to lay out the range of innovations to meet the needs of heterogeneous potential savers.

Suggested Citation

Tufano, Peter and Schneider, Daniel, Using Financial Innovation to Support Savers: From Coercion to Excitement (April 14, 2008). Harvard Business School Finance Working Paper No. 08-075, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1120382 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1120382

Peter Tufano (Contact Author)

Harvard Business School ( email )

Soldiers Field Road
Morgan Hall 131
Boston, MA 02163
United States

University of Oxford, Said Business School

Park End Street
Oxford, OX1 1HP
Great Britain

Daniel Schneider

Princeton University ( email )

22 Chambers Street
Princeton, NJ 08544-0708
United States

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