About

Robert Clark is a Professor of Economics at NC State University and a member of the graduate faculty in the Department of Economics. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University in 1974. His areas of expertise include labor economics, economics of aging, pension and retirement policies. Clark has been recognized with the Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence in 2021. His research has focused on financial security inequality among Black and Latina women, and he has received significant grants to study Americans’ financial health in retirement. Clark has contributed to public discussions on retirement issues, including the future of pension funds and retiree health care funding, and has served as Chair of the N.C. Future of Retirement Study Commission.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Demographic economics
• Psychology
• Business
• Economics
• Sociology
• Development economics
• Demography
• Social psychology
• Macroeconomics
• Finance
• Gender studies
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Evaluating the effects of a low-cost, online financial education program

  Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization · 2025-03-03 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  We provide evidence on how a low-cost, online, and scalable financial education program influences older participants’ financial knowledge. We test the program using a field experiment that includes short stories covering three fundamental financial education topics: compound interest, risk diversification, and inflation. Two surveys are administered eight months apart to measure the effects of those stories on middle-aged and older (45+) participants' short-term and longer-term knowledge and financial behavior. We show that the risk diversification story is the most effective at improving participants' knowledge, in both the short and longer terms. In the short term, reading the risk diversification story significantly increased the likelihood of correctly answering the related knowledge questions by 17–18 percentage points. The compound interest and inflation stories significantly increase participant knowledge in the short term, but the gain in financial literacy declines over time. Furthermore, timestamp data was used to show that the inflation story increased the time participants spent answering the related knowledge questions suggesting that exposure to our story boosted participants’ attentiveness and interest in the topic. Over just an eight-month time period, the stories do not seem to have a significant effect on financial behaviors as measured by four financial distress indicators and a financial resilience index. Nevertheless, higher financial literacy is positively linked to better financial decision-making. The eight months might be too short to measure significant behavioral change; thus, further research is needed to prove the intervention's effect on financial behavior in the long run.

  PublisherDOI

• Retirement Benefit Distributions for California Educators

  The Journal of Retirement · 2025-11-26

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Distribution choices by individuals retiring from the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) are examined for participants that retired between 2016 and 2023. Women are much more likely to select a member-only annuity while a larger proportion of men select a joint and survivor (J&S) annuity that provides survivor benefits. Being married is a dominant factor in the selection of J&S annuities. Greater final annual salary, older ages at retirement, and more years of service are associated with a greater probability of choosing a J&S annuity. We also find that benefit choices from the primary benefit plan are jointly determined with distributions chosen from the supplemental pension plan. Interestingly, about half of retirees select a lump sum distribution from the supplemental plan while receiving an annuity from their primary plan.

  PublisherDOI

• Automatic Enrollment in Public Supplemental Retirement Plans

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• An Empirical Comparison of Methods to Produce Business Statistics Using Non-Probability Data

  Journal of Official Statistics · 2025-01-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  There is a growing trend among statistical agencies to explore non-probability data sources for producing more timely and detailed statistics, while reducing costs and respondent burden. Coverage and measurement error are two issues that may be present in such data. The imperfections may be corrected using available information relating to the population of interest, such as a census or a reference probability sample. In this paper, we compare a wide range of existing methods for producing population estimates using a non-probability dataset through a simulation study based on a realistic business population. The study was conducted to examine the performance of the methods under different missingness and data quality assumptions. The results confirm the ability of the methods examined to address selection bias. When no measurement error is present in the non-probability dataset, a screening dual-frame approach for the probability sample tends to yield lower sample size and mean squared error results. The presence of measurement error and/or nonignorable missingness increases mean squared errors for estimators that depend heavily on the non-probability data. In this case, the best approach tends to be to fall back to a model-assisted estimator based on the probability sample.

  PublisherDOI

• Automatic Enrollment in Public Supplemental Retirement Plans

  State and Local Government Review · 2025-10-02

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In this paper, we examine the prevalence of automatic enrollment provisions in public supplemental retirement plans. Available evidence indicates that relatively few government retirement systems have adopted automatic enrollment provisions for their supplemental retirement saving plans. We explore some factors that might explain this lack of interest in automatic enrollment by public employers, including: state laws that specifically prohibit the use of auto enrollment, the overhead costs of adding the policy, the perception that governments are already providing an adequate retirement plan, and union concerns about the impact of reduced take home pay. JEL codes: H75, J32, J45

  PublisherDOI

• Estimating Propensities of Selection for Big Datasets via Data Integration

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2025-01-07

  preprintOpen access

  Big data presents potential but unresolved value as a source for analysis and inference. However,selection bias, present in many of these datasets, needs to be accounted for so that appropriate inferences can be made on the target population. One way of approaching the selection bias issue is to first estimate the propensity of inclusion in the big dataset for each member of the big dataset, and then to apply these propensities in an inverse probability weighting approach to produce population estimates. In this paper, we provide details of a new variant of existing propensity score estimation methods that takes advantage of the ability to integrate the big data with a probability sample. We compare the ability of this method to produce efficient inferences for the target population with several alternative methods through an empirical study.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Personal Discount Rates and Economic Decisions

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Retirement Benefit Distributions for California Educators

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Financial Fragility, Financial Resilience, and Pension Distributions

  The Journal of Retirement · 2024-03-06 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article evaluates Americans’ financial robustness during the Covid-19 pandemic, using measures of financial resilience and financial fragility derived from US surveys of persons age 45–75 from 2020 to 2022. The authors analyze which factors were associated with resilience and fragility, discuss how these measures changed during the pandemic, and assess whether pre-pandemic resilience led to better outcomes during the period. Results show that stronger resilience was protective in terms of financial fragility, and that financial literacy was associated with greater pension knowledge as well as better information about retirement plan distribution options. The more financially resilient were also more likely to select an annuity as a pension payout. The findings imply that policies and programs enhancing financial resilience could help households better withstand economic shocks and address income needs in times of crisis.

  PublisherDOI

• Evaluating the Effects of a Low-Cost, Online Financial Education Program

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Olivia S. Mitchell

  University of Pennsylvania

  74 shared

• Melinda Sandler Morrill

  North Carolina State University

  69 shared

• Steven G. Allen

  North Central State College

  59 shared

• Annamaria Lusardi

  Economic Policy Institute

  45 shared

• Lee A. Craig

  29 shared

• Ann A. McDermed

  North Carolina State University

  26 shared

• Robert G. Hammond

  20 shared

• Emma Hanson

  Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

  18 shared

Education

• PhD, Economics

  Duke University

Awards & honors

• Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence (2021)