U.S. Household Finance Initiative

 The U.S. Household Finance Initiative is working to build better markets for personal finance in the United States by using insights from the social sciences to develop, test and refine innovations that benefit both users and suppliers of financial products and services.

With the recent economic downturn, more American families live in fragile circumstances.  People need help building assets, controlling debt and planning for the future.  Yet evidence from economics and psychology show that even educated people make some common, costly mistakes when it comes to their finances.  The response from government has been to build stronger consumer protection systems and to sponsor financial education, yet these interventions are expensive and it's not clear that they help.

The US Household Finance Initiative takes a different approach.  We innovate and test new approaches from behavioral economics to help people make better financial decisions.  The initiative focuses on measuring the impact of behavioral techniques that help people increase savings and manage debt.  We are also building knowledge about how financial planning tools affect financial health and how financial consumers respond to marketing.