Shlomo Benartzi

Shlomo Benartzi appears in the book as an economist whose work with Richard H. Thaler illustrates how a retirement plan can use people’s existing preferences and inertia to increase saving. Rather than command employees to save, the plan let them choose different savings rates for present and future income; workers selected substantially higher rates for income they would receive months later, and their average savings rate soon doubled.

Retirement plan and its design

The plan designed by Benartzi and Richard H. Thaler addressed a practical obstacle: people may want to save but find it easier to continue spending than to take action to enroll or increase contributions. Automatic enrollment can make participation more likely by requiring employees to opt out rather than opt in. The plan’s additional feature focused on future income, allowing workers to commit part of earnings they had not yet received.

That distinction mattered. Employees adopted much higher savings rates for future income than for current income, and within a short time their average savings rate had doubled. The evidence presents the result as a concrete change in behavior, not as a claim that employees had been forced to save or that their preferences had been replaced.

Behavioral economics and collective outcomes

The example supports a broader argument about designing institutions around the way people actually make decisions. Instead of imposing a top-down requirement, the plan offered options and shifted the frame through which employees considered their finances. The arrangement made it easier to act on a desire to save while leaving employees choices about contribution rates.

The book connects this approach to a larger question in behavioral economics: how new structures can help more rational collective behavior emerge from individual decisions. Benartzi’s role is specifically tied to the retirement plan and its increased savings rates; the account does not provide further biographical details or describe his other work. Its emphasis is on the design lesson: a modest change in how choices are presented can help people save more without a mandate.