Nudges, Shocks, and Job Lock: Behavioral Responses in Environmental, Financial, and Labor Contexts

This dissertation examines how behavioral and psychological factors influence household decision-making and well-being across three distinct domains: environmental sustainability, financial portfolio choices, and labor market constraints. The first study reports on a field experiment in a northern Italian municipality that tested whether text message nudges (the Know-As-You-Throw initiative) could improve residential waste sorting. We find that personalized self-comparison messages significantly reduced the frequency of unsorted waste disposal, while social-comparison messages had no detectable effect. Importantly, the positive impact on waste reduction persisted even one year after the intervention. The second study investigates how past disaster experiences affect households’ participation in risky financial assets, using panel data from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) matched with the Emergency Events Database. We show that exposure to natural or technological disasters significantly lowers both the probability of holding risky assets and the share of wealth invested in them. Moreover, disasters lead to small but significant increases in certain personality traits, notably openness and neuroticism, and these psychological changes partially mediate the reduced risk-taking, accounting for about a 3 percent indirect effect. The third study explores the relationship between perceived job lock and life satisfaction among U.S. workers aged 50 and above, using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We find that older workers who feel “locked” in their jobs due to financial and health insurance dependency report lower overall life satisfaction and lower satisfaction in specific life domains, especially financial and leisure domains. Furthermore, individuals with a stronger sense of perceived control experience lower feelings of constraint and are less negatively affected by job lock in terms of their well-being. Taken together, these three studies highlight the importance of behavioral interventions and contextual factors in shaping sustainable practices, financial resilience, and subjective well-being. The findings suggest that policymakers should leverage behavioral insights—such as tailored nudges and support for psychological resources—when designing programs to improve environmental outcomes, financial health, and the quality of work-life for older adults.