The National Endowment for Financial Education has awarded UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government the largest grant it has ever given: $183,320 for the first comprehensive study of how retirees plan and manage assets drawn down in early retirement.
Researchers from the institute’s Research and Policy Analysis Division will develop and apply two separate financial education curricula and follow four groups of retiring workers over a three-year period. Jason Seligman, principal investigator, will develop the educational offerings and survey modules. The institute’s Survey Research and Data Services Unit will track and survey study participants.
The institute team will implement a classic experimental design to better understand how workers make financial decisions in early retirement, and how to formulate better financial management instructional tools related to successful savings draw-down decisions.
The research design, which develops and tests two separate modular educational curricula across four worker populations, is advantageous both for the development of an effective financial literacy program and for researching a very important life process, according to Seligman.
“This study represents an opportunity for the institute to make an important contribution to informing personal savings behaviors in the public and private sectors,” he says. “Our protocol also allows us to enhance research and teaching activities as we assist the public through our study.”
