James Choi: How to Improve the Way We Present and Make Investment Choices

<p>Our guest this week is James Choi. Dr. Choi is a professor of finance at the Yale School of Management, where he teaches and conducts research on behavioral finance and economics, household finance, and sociology, among other topics. He is a two-time recipient of the TIAA Paul A. Samuelson Award for outstanding scholarly writing on lifelong financial security, and his work on automatic enrollment into retirement plans has had a major influence on retirement plan policy and design. Dr. Choi is a co-director of the Retirement and Disability Research Center at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an associate editor of the <i>Journal of Finance</i>, among other professional and scholarly affiliations. He received both his bachelor’s degree and doctorate from Harvard University.</p><p><strong>Background</strong></p><p><a href="https://faculty.som.yale.edu/jameschoi/" target="_blank">Bio</a></p><p><a href="https://www.nber.org/programs-projects/projects-and-centers/retirement-and-disability-research-center?page=1&perPage=50" target="_blank">Retirement and Disability Research Center</a></p><p><strong>Academics vs. Bestsellers</strong></p><p>“<a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w30395" target="_blank">Popular Personal Financial Advice Versus the Professors</a>,” by James Choi, <a href="http://nber.com/" target="_blank">nber.com</a>, October 2022.</p><p><strong>Choice Architecture and Retirement Plan Design</strong></p><p>“<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235413094_NUDGE_Improving_Decisions_About_Health_Wealth_and_Happiness" target="_blank">Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness</a>,” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, <a href="http://researchgate.net/" target="_blank">researchgate.net</a>, June 2009.</p><p>“<a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21467/w21467.pdf" target="_blank">Contributions to Defined Contribution Pension Plans</a>,” by James Choi, <a href="http://nber.org/" target="_blank">nber.org</a>, August 2015.</p><p>“<a href="https://fac