lnertia is a state in which people do nothing without making a conscious decision to do so. lnertia can be a problem when it leads to suboptimal (financial) outcomes. For example, many people could save hundreds of euros and might receive better coverage by switching health care insurance, but they do not. Another example is that many people could save more for their pensions by making small investments in money now, but they do not. The aim of the current project is to understand which contexts effects might invoke financial inertia and who is most likely to become financially inert.

This PhD-project starts with a literature review to model the contextual determinants of financial inertia. We will take a psychological perspective in the sense that we are not only looking for financial barriers, or time barriers, but also cognitive and motivational barriers raised by the context that lead to inertia (e.g., information is too complex, costs and benefits of taking action are difficult to compute, the choice set and communication style invokes worries about making the wrong decision, etc.). The next goal is to develop and test a scale to assess dispositional inertia. Finally, the theoretical model and the dispositional inertia scale will be validated via surveys and lab and field experiments.