The researchers have designed an innovative survey to investigate how investors' savings decisions and portfolio strategies depend upon several potentially important psychological variables, as well as more conventional economic factors such as risk aversion, income, and education. The research has four principal goals. First, to gather information on the economic and psychological motives guiding households in making their savings and portfolio decisions. Second, to explore transactions costs related to financial decision-making, including the subjective difficulty and degree of stress involved in making financial decisions. Third, to identify the extent to which differences among households in the degree and the form of preparation for retirement can be explained by their economic and psychological characteristics. Fourth, to explore the role of advice in impacting savings and portfolio decisions, and to clarify how this interacts with economic and behavioral characteristics.
