Getting Citizens to Save: Media Influence on Incentive-Based Policies

Abstract Governments often introduce financial incentives to citizens in order to encourage ‘personally responsible’ behaviour. Examples of these types of incentives include tax-deferral or tax-free incentives around retirement savings. These types of incentives are shown to matter to investment strategies in the aggregate, but we still lack a full explanation as to how individuals respond to these types of incentives, and what role media play in advertising these incentives. This paper illustrates the potentially vital role that media play in enhancing contributions to one incentive-based policy, the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) in Canada (2000–2013), using aggregate contribution data, media data, as well as individual-level survey data from the Canadian Financial Capability Survey. Results show that media advertising of the programme influences contribution outcomes and, while media may not outweigh lifecycle effects such as proximity to retirement, it is nonetheless an essential – and overlooked – motivator for contributions to late-life savings.