Essays on Strategic Behavior and Economic Decision-Making: Evidence from Retirement Saving, Insurance, and Intergenerational Contexts

<p>This dissertation studies how individuals make economic decisions under information frictions, focusing on strategic behavior, behavioral responses to interventions, and the formation of economic preferences. Essay 1 examines whether economic behavior can be improved through short-term workplace educational interventions. Using a randomized field experiment conducted in Korea, this study provides causal evidence that a brief and scalable workplace intervention can substantially increase employees’ intended engagement with retirement savings. The effects are particularly strong among individuals with no prior enrollment in private retirement plans. The findings suggest that the observed behavioral responses are consistent with a behavioral activation mechanism, whereby increased salience and pledge-based commitment device prompt individuals to take immediate action. Overall, the results highlight the effectiveness of scalable workplace interventions as a practical tool for overcoming behavioral frictions such as limited attention and inertia. Essay 2 investigates causal evidence of strategic behavior in automobile insurance settlements. Using administrative data on bodily injury liability claims from Korea, this study examines whether dispute filing influences settlement outcomes. To address endogenous selection into dispute filing, we exploit exogenous variation in procedural timing and estimate an endogenous treatment-effects model that jointly models the dispute decision and settlement outcomes. The results show that dispute filing increases settlement outcomes on average once selection is properly accounted for. However, this average effect masks substantial heterogeneity across liability environments, suggesting that the informational value of dispute filing depends on the underlying strength of the claim. These findings highlight how institutional features of the claims process shape strategic behavior and affect compensation outcomes in insurance markets. Essay 3 explores the developmental origins of economic preferences by examining how risk attitudes are transmitted across generations. Using survey and behavioral measures from China and Korea, this study documents the intergenerational transmission of risk preferences between parents and children. The findings not only reveal that risk preferences are transmitted within families, but also provide evidence of important cross-country differences in the mechanisms underlying this transmission. In the Chinese sample, stronger alignment in risk preferences is observed in households with higher levels of parental involvement and financial parenting. In contrast, in the Korean sample, a more demanding parenting style is associated with stronger intergenerational transmission. These results suggest that while the transmission of preferences is a general phenomenon, the specific channels through which it operates depend on cultural and familial contexts. Together, these essays demonstrate that economic behavior is shaped not only by strategic responses to information, but also by behavioral activation and intergenerational preference formation. By integrating insights from information economics, behavioral economics, and preference formation, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of how individuals make decisions in modern economic environments.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Economics, PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Social Science, Politics, and Evaluation

Year dc:date.available

2026

Author dc:creator

• Hong, Bobae

Contributors dc:contributor

• Joshua Tasoff
• Thomas J. Kniesner

• Economics

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/1103

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cgu_etd-2125