They see that they might live a much better retirement, but they find it hard to imagine what the difference in retirement would be. They cannot visualize their older selves well enough to know what they will want to spend.
[…] It is as if they cannot attach any clear meaning to the ultimate purpose of saving, of providing for the future’.13 Anna Maria Lusardi, in her pioneering work on educating citizens about social security choices, finds this lack of interest a major obstacle to financial education.14 Her work is quoted by Akerlof and Shiller as evidence of people’s non-rational indifference towards their own financial future.15 There are a few more problems that hinder the popularisation of economics: for example, finance museums have fewer ‘wonders’ to showcase than science museums; they are rarely capable of producing what popularisers call the ‘wow effect’.16 What can we do?