Faculty
Taha Choukhmane is the Class of 1947 Career Development Assistant Professor and an Assistant Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
He was most recently a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research interests lie at the intersection of household finance and behavioral economics, with a focus on households’ saving decisions.
Taha received his PhD in economics at Yale University, where he was awarded the George Trimis Dissertation Prize. He is the recipient of a grant from the Social Security Administration, and he was a dissertation fellow of the Boston College Center for Retirement Research and a graduate policy fellow at Yale’s Institute of Social and Policy Studies.
Current Research Focus: Choukhmane’s research focuses on the way households make their saving and investment decisions. His current research projects examine the behavior of participants in retirement savings plans: the behavioral biases that affect their investment and portfolio-allocation decisions, and the extent to which married couples coordinate their saving decisions. Another area of ongoing research explores how the design of retirement saving incentives contributes to racial wealth inequality.
Choukhmane, Taha. Forthcoming.
Choukhmane, Taha, Lucas Goodman, and Cormac O'Dea. American Economic Review. Forthcoming.
Choukhmane, Taha, and Tim de Silva. Journal of Finance. Forthcoming.
Choukhmane, Taha, and Christopher John Palmer, Working Paper. October 2024.
Choukhmane, Taha, Jorge Colmenares, Cormac O'Dea, Jonathan Rothbaum, and Lawrence D.W. Schmidt, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6592-21. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, August 2024.
Greig, Fiona, Anna Madamba, Guillermo Carranza, Cormac O'Dea, Taha Choukhmane, and Lawrence D.W. Schmidt, MIT Sloan Working Paper 7069-24. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, June 2024.
When employers hold back wages for retirement savings, younger consumers and less-wealthy people cut their spending. Wealthier individuals tap their deposit accounts.
White employees receive nearly twice as much in employer and tax subsidies for retirement saving than Black and Hispanic workers.
"The goal has to be retirement preparedness that also is financial resilience, having the money to pay for your car if it breaks down."
"The rate of early withdrawals among Black Americans is almost twice as high as among white workers. "
"It's all about how much you can afford to contribute and how much you choose to contribute."
Employer contributions add up to 24% of the wealth in retirement plans, according to assistant professor Taha Choukhmane.
