Mingli Zhong

• Mingli Zhong (Working), Optimal Default Retirement Saving Policies: Theory and Evidence from OregonSaves (Job Market Paper). Abstract

  Many U.S. states are launching state-sponsored auto-enrollment retirement plans, with the goal of boosting retirement savings among private-sector workers lacking access to employer-sponsored retirement plans. This paper provides an analysis of state-sponsored auto-enrollment plans, and specifically, the plan’s default contribution rate. We develop a tractable framework to derive the optimal default contribution rate taking into account workers’ decisions on adhering to the default contribution rate. The optimal default contribution rate is shaped by the social benefits of increased savings due to adherence to the default that keeps workers from undersaving, while reducing reliance on means-tested social transfers. The optimal default contribution rate is also counterbalanced by the social benefits of action when an undesirable default option compels workers to make an active decision. To estimate these counterbalancing social welfare forces, we use individual-level administrative and survey data from OregonSaves, the state-sponsored plan offered by the Oregon state government, and suggest the optimal default contribution rate to be 8%.

• John Chalmers, Olivia S. Mitchell, Jonathan Reuter, Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, Mingli Zhong, Auto-Enrollment Retirement Plans for the People: Choices and Outcomes in OregonSaves.
• Mingli Zhong, Unemployment Insurance, Moral Hazard, and Age Discrimination in the Labor Market. Abstract

  This paper investigates whether the effect of unemployment insurance benefits on unemployment duration varies by age over the business cycle. When tested individually, the unemployment durations of younger workers are significantly raised by the same level of increase in UI benefits more in a boom than in a recession, while those of older workers are equally affected over the business cycle. This difference between age groups is \textit{not} significant when tested as an interaction effect in a more stringent regression model. Similarly, we also find that the age effect reported in previous study is non-significant when subjected to the same procedure of regression analysis. The current findings suggest that incorporating age into the design of UI benefits should require further study and more credible evidence.

• Dissertation Fellowship from the Social Security Administration and the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, 2019
• Robert R. Nathan Fellowship, 2019
• “OregonSaves – An Analysis of Participating in State-Sponsored Retirement Plans”, Grant from U.S. Social Security Administration, 2019
• “The Effect of Default Retirement Savings on Credit Scores”, Grant from Wharton’s Boettner Center/Pension Research Council, 2019
• “Phase II Survey Incentives for the OregonSaves Project”, Grant from AARP, 2018
• “Understanding Retirement Plan Default Behavior: The Case of OregonSaves”, Grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2018
• “Understanding Retirement Plan Default Behavior”, Grant from Wharton’s Boettner Center/Pension Research Council, 2017
• Wharton Risk Center Russell Ackoff Doctoral Student Fellowship, 2016
• Bradley Foundation Fellowship, 2015

• “Auto-Enrollment Retirement Plans for the People: Choices and Outcomes in OregonSaves”, 21st Annual Social Security Administration Research Consortium Meeting at the National Press Club - 08/02/2019

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