In an age where technology shapes almost every aspect of our lives, from fitness to socializing, it’s high time we embrace it for retirement planning as well. While many of us have successfully harnessed apps like Strava to track our running or cycling activities, why not apply a similar concept to retirement savings? In thisContinue reading “We Need a Strava-like App for Retirement Planning: Motivating Your Way to a Secure Future”
Author Archives: Ziga Vizintin
Indexing Pension Plan Contributions with Inflation: Case study of The Opt-Out Approach in a Slovenian Pension Fund
Since many individual pension plan members make monthly contributions in fixed nominal amounts, for example €50 or €100 monthly, and most countries recorded double digit inflation in the last year, the only sensible thing to do would be to index contributions with the inflation rate, right? Since we know most members of pension plans areContinue reading “Indexing Pension Plan Contributions with Inflation: Case study of The Opt-Out Approach in a Slovenian Pension Fund”
Key Takeaways from the Warsaw Conference on Retirement planning
Last month I was fortunate to be in Warsaw (Poland) attending an international conference titled “Society, economy and finance in the face of market and demographic volatility” focused extensively on retirement planning in the face of the ongoing demographic shift. I participated in a discussion titled “The use of behavioral economics in shaping retirement awareness”Continue reading “Key Takeaways from the Warsaw Conference on Retirement planning “
Herd behavior – from bank runs to retirement saving
If you are sitting in a packed cinema enjoying a romantic movie with your partner and someone suddenly yells “fire” and runs out, the chances are other individuals may perceive this as a signal to also leave the cinema, even if they have not seen or confirmed the existence of a fire. This behavior canContinue reading “Herd behavior – from bank runs to retirement saving”
Using commitment devices to save and invest with some lessons from Odysseus
The lack of self-control is one of the main reasons many fail to save for retirement or a rainy day. We get our paycheck and on our way home from work we stroll by our favourite mall and treat ourselves just a bit – this is at least what we tell ourselves. Some buy thoseContinue reading “Using commitment devices to save and invest with some lessons from Odysseus”
Using New Year’s resolutions to help you reach a secure retirement and build emergency savings
Let’s be honest, most of us make New Year’s resolutions and most of us terribly fail at them and by february we would rather forget all about them. But it doesn’t have to be this way and behavioral experts can offer us much help on how to make them work and actually change our behaviorContinue reading “Using New Year’s resolutions to help you reach a secure retirement and build emergency savings”
Lessons for retirement planning from Whitney Houston’s hit song How Will I Know
“There’s a boy I know, he’s the one I dream of” are the first lines of Whitney Houston’s hit single “How will I know” from her debut album launched in 1985. The song became Houston’s second number-one single on the US Billboard chart and together with the accompanying music video you can still watch onContinue reading “Lessons for retirement planning from Whitney Houston’s hit song How Will I Know”
How defaults influence investment allocation of pension plan members (novel data set, N = 5.953)
Psychological inertia is best described as a general tendency towards inaction and because actions are always associated with some mental or physical effort, we prefer to avoid it and maintain the status-quo. Inertia is just one of the behavioral reasons millions all across the globe are still not saving for retirement and for the onesContinue reading “How defaults influence investment allocation of pension plan members (novel data set, N = 5.953)“
Houston, we have a problem – (un)readability of retirement plan documentation 
According to the article in July’s issue of The Journal of Superannuation Management, you needed a tertiary level education* to understand or accurately interpret documentation related to your retirement plan. Guess how many Australians have a tertiary level education? Only 1,2 % of adults, hence the title of the article, Houston, we have a problem. Continue reading “Houston, we have a problem – (un)readability of retirement plan documentation ”
The Dunning-Kruger effect and retirement saving
The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is, you don’t know that you’re a member of. A Slovenian news portal ran a terrific article the other day that also featured an interview with professor David Dunning, who together with Justin Kruger discovered the behavioral bias known today as the Dunning-Kruger effect. The effect was describedContinue reading “The Dunning-Kruger effect and retirement saving”
Irrational Retirement 