The proposed Center aims to better understand how people reach decisions about issues affecting their economic status in old age and inform how public policy can educate or otherwise help people align decisions with their long-term objectives. The focus will be on assessing how people collect information, how they interpret the features of alternatives, how they think about risks and probabilities, what their preferences are, and how well they match their decisions to those preferences and interests. As we uncover weak links in that process, we will draw implications for better education or other mechanisms to help people make decisions that better serve them in old age. We propose to maintain a panel of respondents age 40 or older who are surveyed about three times per year via the Internet with in-depth questions about a limited number of issues. The panel comprises both respondents who already have Internet access when recruited into the survey and respondents who are given access to the Interne t by the Center, We will fund pilot projects with a specific substantive focus and specific concrete potential benefits for helping the elderly make better decisions. As part of each of the pilots we will conduct randomized experiments to find out what works best in helping people make better decisions. We will develop decision support software and extensively use visual aids and graphical designs, thus fully exploiting the advantages offered by the Internet. We will promote and coordinate research without P30 Roybal Center support on issues that may help understand individuals' decision making process; and promote the use of the Center's Internet panel by these and other research projects. We propose to exploit synergies with existing projects.
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