Personalized Digital Information and Tax-favoured Retirement Savings: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Administrative Data

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of making personalized digital information available through a pension app on contributions to tax-favored retirement accounts. Using Swiss administrative pension fund data, we document limited take-up of fiscal incentives for retirement savings. Exploiting the staggered introduction of the pension app across occupational pension funds, we show that its availability increases individual tax-favored contributions. Men and higher-income earners are more likely to access the digital environment and respond to its introduction. These findings suggest that providing access to a pension app reduces information and transaction costs and facilitates the take-up of financial incentives for retirement saving.