Nudging Financial and Demographic Literacy: Experimental Evidence from an Italian Pension Fund

Abstract

In this article, we present and test experimentally a low-cost, Internet-based, financial literacy intervention program that we designed for implementation with the largest industrial pension fund in Italy. The program, Finlife (Financial Education and Planning for a Long Life) included: 1) an instructional video on financial, and demographic, literacy, provided online; 2) an experimental design that explicitly allowed to evaluate the impact of the online content on financial and demographic literacy, as well as on short-term behavioral changes; 3) a follow-up that allowed to assess the subsequent choice of investment lines within the pension fund. Finlife was designed to be a low-cost and scalable approach to increase financial and demographic literacy, consistently with a ‘nudge’ philosophy. Our findings show that Finlife delivered a substantially and statistically significant increase in financial and demographic literacy, as well as a push towards seeking more information on financial markets and choices related to financial planning, and becoming more active in financial decisions.

Keywords: pensions, financial literacy, demographic literacy, field experiment, Finlife

JEL Classification: D91