Nudging to save : two field experiments of China's personal pension program

Abstract

Launched in November 2022, Personal Pension Program is one of measures China’s government has taken to face the ageing problem. This thesis studies how to effectively nudge for more participation in this program. The first study involves six prevalent nudges in phone call scripts, aiming to investigate whether behavioral nudges, as opposed to monetary incentives, are effective in this setting. Overall, all treatments outperform the baseline bonus in terms of listening behavior, and the Tax and Compound Treatments significantly surpass the baseline regarding browsing behaviors. We further analyze the heterogeneous treatment effects by users’ demographics. In the latter second study, we directly test the augmenting value of taking heterogeneous treatment effects into consideration. We predict the best treatments for users based on their demographic profiles, and compared this personalized condition with a randomly allocated condition. With personalization, users demonstrate a greater willingness to listen to phone calls and are more inclined to browse related pages on the bank's app. To sum up, this thesis find that behavioral nudges and especially personalized nudges are useful in promotion of Personal Penson Program.