Krzysztof Makarski presented “The 401(k) program and its impact on household financial investment and knowledge” at the 31st CEF Conference.

In this project, we employ a rich life-cycle model calibrated to U.S. data to examine how tax-advantaged illiquid retirement accounts affect the accumulation of wealth and financial knowledge. We show that such programs do not necessarily increase aggregate savings, as they may weaken incentives to acquire financial knowledge.

We are grateful to the participants for their insightful questions, thoughtful feedback, and inspiring comments.