Why is it hard to save? Because it’s more fun to spend! There are some really big issues of behavioral economics here. Brain research indicates that it is important to try to get people to address these issues using the front of the brain–the prefrontal cortex–where they can reason and analyze. Unfortunately, many of us succumb to the emotional impulses of the older reptile brain rather than the reasoned responses of the newer reasoning brain.

That does sound like a job for behavioral economists, or maybe psychologists.

No question about it. People really don’t want to think deeply about their inevitable demise. I experienced this with my neighbor. We were talking, and I said, "I know how old you are and how old your wife is. Let me produce a plot of the probabilities, year by year by year, that you will both be alive, that only you will be alive, that only she will be alive and that you both will be dead." I produced the graph and gave it to him the next day. Neither he nor his wife wanted to see it. But without seriously considering such information, how can you even begin to make sensible decisions about how much money to spend now?

Do you think your current research is Nobel worthy?

No. Most scientific progress comes from gradual accretion. For good reasons the Nobel committee will identify one, two or three people with a body of work. Among other things, this helps popularize the importance of science in the public mind. But will one or two people rise sufficiently above the many, many researchers who are doing important work in the field of retirement economics to be worthy of being singled out? Perhaps. But I view my work in this area as applying a combination of fairly standard economics and fairly standard actuarial and behavioral concepts to this particular class of problems. I certainly don’t anticipate anyone looking at anything I’ve done or am likely to do in this area and saying: "Wow, nobody thought of that. What a huge breakthrough that was."

What was it like to win a Nobel Prize?

When people ask, I say, "First of all, it’s really nice. If they offer you one, you should take it." It’s an incredibly heady experience, to be sure.