Dennis Shea
Economist and benefits researcher, co-author of the 2001 pension study that remains the cleanest evidence for the default effect.
Who they are
Shea co-wrote the paper that showed what happens when a single company switches its pension scheme from opt-in to automatic enrolment, using the firm's own records before and after the change.
The design is the reason the finding has aged well. There was no experiment to abandon and no disappointing result to leave unpublished, which is the mechanism that damaged much of the surrounding literature.
Key papers
Madrian, B. C., & Shea, D. F. (2001). The power of suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) participation and savings behavior. Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Key ideas
Participation rose sharply under automatic enrolment, and a large share of those enrolled stayed on both the default contribution rate and the default fund.
Almost nobody hired under the old arrangement had chosen that particular combination, which is what makes the default rather than the plan the explanation.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- doi:10.1162/003355301753265543