Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2018
  • Chapter
  • Handbook of Behavioral Economics

Behavioral Household Finance

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of household finance. The first part summarizes key facts regarding household financial behavior, emphasizing empirical regularities that are inconsistent with the standard classical economic model and discussing extensions of the classical model and explanations grounded in behavioral economics that can account for the observed patterns. This part covers five topics: consumption and savings, borrowing, payments, asset allocation, and insurance. The second part addresses interventions that firms, governments, and other parties deploy to shape household financial outcomes: education and information, peer effects and social influence, product design, advice and disclosure, choice architecture, and interventions that directly target prices or quantities.

Keywords

Personal Finance; Global Range; Household; Behavior; Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, And Reforms; Product Design; Welfare

Citation

Beshears, John, James J. Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. "Behavioral Household Finance." In Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Foundations and Applications 1, edited by B. Douglas Bernheim, Stefano DellaVigna, and David Laibson, 177–276. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2018.
  • Read Now

About The Author

John Beshears

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • November 2020
    • Faculty Research

    Social Salary Setting at Spiber

    By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears
    • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

    Nudging: Progress to Date and Future Directions

    By: John Beshears and Harry Kosowsky
    • August 2020
    • Health Services Research

    Do Physician Incentives Increase Patient Medication Adherence?

    By: Edward Kong, John Beshears, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, Kevin Volpp, George Loewenstein, Jonathan Kolstad and James J. Choi
More from the Authors
  • Social Salary Setting at Spiber By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears
  • Nudging: Progress to Date and Future Directions By: John Beshears and Harry Kosowsky
  • Do Physician Incentives Increase Patient Medication Adherence? By: Edward Kong, John Beshears, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, Kevin Volpp, George Loewenstein, Jonathan Kolstad and James J. Choi
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College