Expert Forecasts of Longevity Beliefs and Pension Knowledge

Last registered on November 24, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Expert Forecasts of Longevity Beliefs and Pension Knowledge
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0017251
Initial registration date
November 15, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
November 19, 2025, 2:08 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
November 24, 2025, 8:59 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Francesco Nicolini
Affiliation
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Mirco Tonin
PI Affiliation
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
PI Name
Matteo Ploner
PI Affiliation
University of Trento
PI Name
Claudia Curi
PI Affiliation
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
PI Name
Andreas Dibiasi
PI Affiliation
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2025-11-17
End date
2026-04-30
Keywords
Behavior, Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
Life Expectancy, Intertemporal Choices, Pension Knowledge, Financial Literacy
JEL code(s)
D15, D83, G53, J32
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
This study makes use of data from a survey on key knowledge areas relevant to individuals over the economic life cycle—namely financial literacy, pension-specific knowledge, and life expectancy—conducted as part of the project “Cultural Aspects of Retirement Saving Decisions” (AEARCTR-0012807). A group of experts in behavioral economics, public and labor economics, finance, and demography will be asked to predict the outcomes of representative cases. We then compare these forecasts with the observed results to assess how predictable the actual outcomes were and the relevance of expertise in forecasting.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Curi, Claudia et al. 2025. "Expert Forecasts of Longevity Beliefs and Pension Knowledge." AEA RCT Registry. November 24. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17251-1.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We conducted a survey on key knowledge areas relevant to individuals over the economic life-cycle, namely financial literacy, pension-specific knowledge, and life expectancy. The survey focused on how individuals integrate these different areas of knowledge, the relationship between individuals’ beliefs about their own life expectancy and that of their peers– defined as individuals of the same gender, age, and place of residence–, and included an information treatment providing some participants with actuarial estimates of their expected lifespan. This treatment was intended to study how such information influences the formation of subjective longevity expectations. The survey experiment was pre-registered AEARCTR-0012807 ("Cultural Aspects of Retirement Saving Decisions").
Intervention Start Date
2025-11-24
Intervention End Date
2026-02-28

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The expert forecasts about:
- the life expectancy individuals estimate for their peers;
- the life expectancy individuals estimate for their own life;
- the knowledge individuals have about financial concepts;
- the knowledge individuals have about the state pension;
- the life expectancy individuals estimate for their own life, given the life expectancy they estimated for their peers;
- the life expectancy individuals estimate for their own life, given both the life expectancy they estimated for their peers and the official actuarial life expectancy (specific to their age, gender, and county of residence) provided to them.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will recruit approximately 200+ experts both through the new letters of academic associations in the fields of behavioral economics, public economics, labor economics, and finance, and through an ad hoc list of authors who have recently published on related topics.

The invitation will include a link to a Qualtrics survey containing a brief explanation of the study’s purpose and structure. We collect information on each expert to capture their academic rank and areas of expertise, which may allow us to assess how forecast accuracy varies with expertise. Experts will then be asked to provide their forecasts for the assigned cases (constructed from the survey data) through a three-block survey, which takes approximately five minutes to complete. The forecasts concern individuals’ beliefs about longevity as well as their knowledge of basic financial concepts and the pension system.

Experts will not receive any direct compensation for their participation. However, as a token of appreciation, we will donate €1 to Save the Children for each completed questionnaire, up to a maximum total donation of €200.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Each expert will be randomly assigned by the Qualtrics platform to one of the 30 cases presented in the first and second blocks, and to one of the 24 cases presented in the third block.
Randomization Unit
Individual subject
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Please see below. The number of clusters is the same as the number of observations.
Sample size: planned number of observations
About 200 experts.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
N/A; there is a single treatment arm, with the only source of variation originating from the representative cases presented.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
ETH Zurich Ethics Commission
IRB Approval Date
2025-07-22
IRB Approval Number
25 ETHICS-233
Analysis Plan

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