Playing with your Future: Who Gambles in Defined-Contribution Pension Plans?

In this article, we investigate the relationship between volatility in the stock market and the trading behaviour of employees in defined-contribution (DC) pension schemes. We found that 10 percent of our sample exhibited compulsive gambling behaviour; in other words, they both ‘fed’ and ‘fed-off’ volatility, and that their individual attributes such as gender, experience in the firm and age clearly influenced their trading behaviour. Our findings shed new light on the behavioural drivers of financial decision-making in a saving-for-retirement setting, and on the crucial importance of the need for the financial industry and policymakers to address the growing onus put on ill-equipped non-professional financial decision makers.

Keywords: Volatility, Retail Investors, Effect of Experience, Financial Decision-Making, Retirement

JEL Classification: G12, G41, J26, C38

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Clark, Gordon L. and Fiaschetti, Maurizio and Tufano, Peter and Viehs, Michael, Playing with your Future: Who Gambles in Defined-Contribution Pension Plans? (January 5, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2643616 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2643616