1、MARCH 2026OVERCONFIDENCE,KNOWLEDGE OF THE RETIREMENT INCOME SYSTEM,AND RETIREMENT PLANNING 1Overconfidence,Knowledge of the Retirement IncomeSystem,and Retirement Planning*Philippe dAstousHEC MontralFranca GlenzerHEC MontralJanuary 13,2026AbstractPrevious research shows that the level of confidence
2、in ones financial ability is importantfor decision-making,especially in the realm of retirement planning.We expand on this liter-ature by using survey responses to objective and subjective measures of financial literacy andretirement knowledge.We find that even though overconfident individuals are m
3、ore likely tostate that they have a retirement plan,they are less likely to have registered retirement savings,and when they do,they hold lower balances.Our findings highlight a potential mechanism inwhich overconfidence in ones knowledge of the retirement system raises expected income re-placement
4、rates,whichconsistent with a standard consumptionsaving modelreduces pri-vate saving.Overconfident individuals also have biased inflation perceptions but take fewerprotective actions to mitigate the effect of inflation.Finally,we find that overconfident individ-uals decrease their scores with repeat
5、ed participation in different waves of the survey.Theseresults suggest that calibrating confidence about ones knowledge of the retirement system andof macroeconomic factors may be important for improving private retirement saving.JEL classification:D14,G53,J26.Keywords:Overconfidence,Financial liter
6、acy,Retirement,Inflation.*dAstous:HEC Montral,email:philippe.dastoushec.ca;Glenzer:HEC Montral,email:franca.glenzerhec.ca.We are very grateful to Cristina Cardenas(HEC Montral)for outstanding research assistance.We thank Pierre-Carl Michaud,Raymond Montizaan and seminar participants at the 2025 HEC-