Educational Status and Savings Performance in Individual Development Accounts

Savings and Prize-Linked Savings Accounts

Savings and Prize-Linked Savings Accounts Many households have insufficient savings to handle moderate and routine consumption shocks. Many of these financially fragile households also have the highest lottery expenditures as a proportion of income. This combination suggests that Prize-Linked Savings (PLS) accounts, that combine principal-security with lottery-type jackpots, can increase saving...

Assets Beyond Saving in Individual Development Accounts

This study examines whether participation in Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) leads to a significant growth in assets beyond saving in the IDA accounts. Using a longitudinal experimental research design for low-income IDA participants, we test for impacts on five measures of assets: liquid assets, other financial assets, total financial assets, real assets, and total assets. Results show ...

Weather Insurance Savings Accounts

Better insurance against rainfall risk could improve the security of hundreds of millions of agricultural households around the world. This paper theoretically and experimentally analyzes an innovative financial product called a Weather Insurance Savings Account (WISA), which combines savings and rainfall insurance. We index the insurance share of the WISA by γ ∈ [0, 1] and use a standard model...

Medical Savings Accounts:

Health Savings Accounts

2/9/06 2:08:34 PM Health savings accounts, or HSAs, are a new health insurance option that became available in 2004. HSAs couple a tax-preferred savings account (the HSA) with high-deductible health insurance. Enrollees or their employers, or both, make tax-free contributions to the HSA. Enrollees use the funds in their HSAs to purchase medical care until they reach their deductibles. At that p...