Savings and incentives -

Numerous public policies seek to encourage private saving. These include the tax-favoured treatment of certain savings vehicles (including private pensions and the various types of ISA), as well as other policies more directly aimed at effecting behavioural change (such as automatic enrolment into employer-provided pensions, financial education programmes and matched saving schemes). Our research in this area aims to investigate the responsiveness of individual saving behaviour to financial and other incentives. This includes the evaluation of government policies designed specifically to influence private saving behaviour, such as the Saving Gateway and automatic enrolment.

Selected highlights

Report summary

What happens when employers are obliged to nudge? Automatic enrolment and pension saving in the UK

This paper exploits the gradual roll-out of the obligation for employers to enrol their employees into a pension to estimate its effect on how much is saved in workplace pensions for private sector employees.

Report

The effects of taxes and charges on saving incentives in the UK

In this report we describe the forms in which household wealth is held, we set out the effects of the current UK tax system on the incentive to save in different assets, we consider the implications of a number of reforms due to be introduced or currently under consideration, and we analyse the ...

Observation

Who will ‘Help to Save’ help to save?

The 2016 Budget included a policy designed to help low-income working families, known as ‘Help to Save’. This observation examines whether the policy is likely to help those who are not currently saving enough and to encourage them to save more, or is instead an opportunity for those who ...