DCIIA Plan Sponsor Survey 2014: Focus on Automatic Plan Features

DCIIA research findings show that using automatic enrollment and automatic contribution escalation increases retirement plan participation rates as well as retirement savings rates.The survey identifies both the promise of what is possible and the barriers that remain to adoption of automatic features in a number of plans. Catherine Collinson, president of Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, is one of whitepaper’s authors.

Behavioral finance and pension decisions

by Lampros Romanos 
in conjuction with Erasmus University Rotterdam and Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies

An extensive literature review and a focused analysis on how framing effects, financial literacy, self-control and loss aversion affect pension decisions

The retirement landscape is rapidly changing with pension savings shifting to Defined Contribution plans. This means that individuals are increasingly confronted with more responsibilities to make decisions about their retirement savings. They are however, neither qualified enough, nor always willing to make such difficult decisions. The present paper after reviewing relevant behavioral theories and studies, uses the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS) 15th Annual US Retirement Survey to examine the impact of framing effects, financial literacy, self-control and loss aversion on those decisions. It finds strong framing and anchoring effects on the match threshold of a matching contribution feature within 401 (k) or similar plans. Moreover, the findings of this paper suggest that financial literacy cannot significantly mitigate these framing effects. Lastly, this paper shows that commitment devices such as having multiple savings accounts can significantly increase ‘out of work’ savings for retirement.

Global Retirement Expectation Gaps -- TCRS featured in PIMCO’s DC Dialogue (January 2015)

Stacy Schaus, PIMCO’s Defined Contribution Practice Leader, interviews with Catherine Collinson, president of Transamerica Institute and Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, a nonprofit based in the U.S. and Lex Solleveld, retirement product design leader of Aegon in the Netherlands about similarities and differences between retirement systems in the US and The Netherlands.

Destination Retirement: Three Different Roads for Three Unique Generations

LIMRA’s MarketFacts Quarterly, October 2014
by Catherine Collinson

Baby Boomers Will Trailblaze New Retirement Models (They Have To)

Aging Today, American Society on Aging, September/October 2014
by Catherine Collinson