The goal of the project is to understand the fit between individual demographic characteristics, cognitive correlates of savings behavior, understanding of pension options, and pension choice as currently manifest in participation and contribution level decisions at Florida public universities. The researchers obtained limited administrative data on a population of approximately 5,300 salaried employees at two major institutions of higher education in the state of Florida, Florida State University and Tallahassee Community College. In addition, they completed a telephone survey of one-quarter of that population in order to gather information on individuals' personal discount rates, risk tolerance, loss aversion, planning horizon, and other cognitive components of savings behavior. The questions were modeled after those in the Health and Retirement Study. Analysis of the data is ongoing.
