February 13, 2025 • 16 mins
A recent article in the New York Times — “Love and Money: Why Sharing Accounts Is Good for Your Relationship” — explores scholarly evidence for the benefits of couples’ combining their bank accounts. The article features the insights of Indiana University marketing professor Jenny Olson, who appeared in 2023 on the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. For a special Valentine’s Day episode, we bring back that classic podcast episode — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — in which Olson discusses her research on joint accounts and couples’ well-being.
Olson and her colleagues randomly assigned new couples to one of three conditions for a two-year period: using only separate accounts, using a joint account only or to a third group that received no instructions about the kind of accounts to use. Couples in the no-instruction group and the separate account group saw declines in relationship quality during the experiment, couples with joint accounts were “buffered” against the declines otherwise expected, she says.
“Because we randomly assigned couples, we can take better steps toward understanding causality,” Olson says. “Our results really do suggest that having a joint bank account improves relationship quality.” While every couple’s financial needs are unique and separate accounts may be what’s needed in many situations, Olson discusses implications of the research for how bankers and wealth managers approach financial planning conversations with clients.
- Read the paper by Olson et al. in the Journal of Consumer Research.
This episode is presented by R&T Deposit Solutions.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evan Sparks (00:00):
From the American Bankers Association, this is a
(00:02):
special Valentine's Day episode ofthe ABA Banking Journal podcast.
Welcome back.
I'm Evan Sparks.
Today's episode is presented withlove by R& T Deposit Solutions.
And I am delighted to share a classicepisode occasioned by a story that came
out in the New York Times earlier thisweek with the headline, "Love and money.
(00:22):
Why sharing accounts isgood for your relationship.
Fewer couples are combining their bankaccounts, but that trend may not promote
partners overall financial health." Nowif you read through the article, the
reporter spends a lot of time talkingto a an academic named Jenny Olson.
Jenny is an assistant professor ofmarketing at the Kelley School of
Business at Indiana University and sheis an expert on the effects a joint
(00:46):
account has on couples' well being.
So as we are here in the season ofrelationships, we actually talked with
Jenny about a year and a half ago hereon the ABA Banking Journal podcast,
and it was such a great episode.
I wanted to bring it back to everybodytoday so that you can get a sense of
some of the research on joint accountsand how they affect relationship
health and couples' wellbeing.
(01:07):
So to all of you out there wishing youa very happy Valentine's Day and enjoy
this classic episode of the podcast.
Jenny Olson (01:14):
Cause we randomly assigned couples, we can take better
steps toward understanding causality.
So our results really do suggestthat having a joint bank account
improves relationship quality
Evan Sparks (01:33):
from the American bankers association.
This is the ABA banking journal podcast.
Welcome back.
I'm Evan Sparks.
Today's episode is presented by Rand T deposit solutions, and we're
here to discuss something that youmay have thought a lot about, or you
may not have thought about at all.
So in my case, I've beenmarried for 13 years.
And when my wife and I got married,we just went to the bank and switched
(01:55):
to, so I, you know, my wife, she movedall her money over to my account and
we switched it into a joint account.
And it was a simple piece ofpaperwork and we were done.
And we haven't thought aboutit much in the past 13 years.
It's been a decision that I honestlykind of felt kind of neutral about.
It was just seemed like itwas the most convenient thing.
For, you know, her to pay her bills,me to pay my bills, us to pay our
(02:16):
shared bills out of one account.
The interest, there is some newresearch that has been published in
the Journal of Consumer Research thatsheds some light on what the effects of
how couples structure their finances.
are and there are actually somemore interesting effects than one
that you might actually think.
It's not entirely the kind ofthe neutral decision that I for
(02:38):
a long time have thought it was.
And then a lot of peopleprobably think it is.
So I'm really delighted that to haveas our guest today, Jenny Olson.
Jenny is an assistant professorof marketing at the Kelly school
of business at Indiana university.
And also the off one of the lead authorof common sense bank account structure
and couples relationship dynamics.
That was recently published in thejournal of consumer research So
(03:00):
jenny, thank you so much for beingon the show and talk telling us a
little bit more about your research
Jenny Olson (03:04):
Yes, thank you for having me evan and I like that You
shared your own story in terms ofhow you decided to choose your bank
account because we were in a similarsituation Which is partly where this
research came from oddly enough, somy fiance at the time he was very much
like Hey, let's go join our account.
I remember being like waitNo, I like my autonomy.
(03:25):
I don't want you to seeeverything that I'm doing.
I like separate accounts.
And, you know, as an academic,I was like, hmm, what does the
literature show on this question?
And it soon became evident thatthere wasn't a lot of research
on this very fundamental decisionthat so many people face.
And so, that's kind of where thisproject started and we went from there.
Evan Sparks (03:45):
So just to level set, what, what's the current breakdown in
terms of how couples structure theirjoint or separate account status?
Jenny Olson (03:53):
Yeah, so there are, there are a few papers out there that look
at these descriptive statistics, and Ibelieve that it's around 50 to 60 percent
will have completely joint accounts.
So it is the, the Favorite option, butthere's also a substantial proportion
of people that have a blend, so theymight have some joints on separate,
and I want to say it's about 10 to15 percent have completely separate.
Evan Sparks (04:16):
Okay.
All right.
So that's, that's interesting and it'scertainly something again I, you know, I.
I've never thought about thisas a contributing factor to, you
know, 13 happy years of marriage.
But the but I know you were curiousabout this and you, you and this,
your coauthors have put together, puttogether this really interesting study
to examine, you know, what, what,what were you trying to, to evaluate?
(04:37):
The, on the effects of couples decisionsabout how to structure their finances.
Jenny Olson (04:43):
Sure.
So kind of taking a step back, one ofthe, the things that we, we found when
we were doing a literature review onthis question, you know, so again, I went
to Scott Rick, who was my dissertationchair at the time, and my co-author
on the paper, and I was like, what?
What's the best thing to do?
Like, what does the literature show?
And he said, you know what, it's funny.
You bring this up because I'vebeen talking to Deb small and
Eli Finkel about this question.
And so we all kind of huddled togetherand started thinking through this.
(05:07):
And there were a few papers that showeda correlation between bank account
structure and marital satisfaction.
So on average couples who had jointaccounts ended to report being happier.
And.
We thought, well, but that's not causal.
Like, is it possible that, you know,our joint accounts making people
happier or are happier people simplymore likely to join, or is there some
(05:30):
third factor that's driving this?
So that really prompted us to lookat this in an experimental context.
And, and so we knew that we wouldhave to manipulate this variable.
And so I can explain the experiment a bit.
Yes,
Evan Sparks (05:43):
please do.
I'd love to like, I think it's greatfor listeners to have a little sense
of the background of the experiment.
Jenny Olson (05:47):
Yeah.
So what we did, so what we did is werecruited ultimately a total of 230
couples who were either engaged to bemarried or entering their first marriage.
And so we wanted to hold thatvariable constant Because financial
things get a little bit more complexas you add more layers to it.
And so everyone started theexperiment with separate accounts.
(06:08):
So we recruited people who have separate.
And then what we did is we randomlyassigned them to one of three conditions.
So we said, we want you to keepseparate accounts, do not open
anything joint, maintain thoseseparate accounts for two years.
In the experimental condition, theone that we were really interested in,
we randomly assigned another subsetof that sample to merge finance.
(06:31):
We told them that we want you todiscontinue use of your separate
accounts, merge accounts, and keep themjoint, use them for the next two years.
And then in the no intervention condition,I like to think of this as a choose your
own adventure We invited couples to dowhat they would naturally do like you can
manage your finances in any way you wantfor the next two Years, and so we followed
(06:52):
these couples then for two years As theytransition to marriage And we surveyed
both partners at six different time pointsbecause that would help us look at the
changes Or their trajectories, you know,are they becoming happier over time?
Are they becoming less happy over time?
And what are the differencesacross those three conditions?
Evan Sparks (07:12):
So, so that, that, that's fascinating structure and,
you know, about how many couples didyou have in, in the experiment total?
Jenny Olson (07:20):
We had 230 couples total, and so they were split across the conditions.
Now we've over sampled or we overassigned couples to the joint account
expecting some attrition because that'sthe only condition where we invited
couples to actively do something.
Evan Sparks (07:35):
Okay.
That's so.
You know, I know, so you're lookinghere at you're, you're serving them
along the way, you're looking atlike their happiness and their the
degree to which they kind of feel likethey're making decisions together.
What are, what, what, what arethe, what are the specific things?
I mean, cause I mean, you know,I, I used to work at an organ at a
think tank and there was a scholarthere who did research on happiness.
(07:57):
And, and I know that, you know,it's kind of a, it's a, how, how do
you measure happiness, et cetera.
Right.
You know what, What are the specificvariables that you were looking
for to evaluate whether coupleswere happier and whether they were,
you know, having a greater degreeof harmony in their relationship?
Jenny Olson (08:15):
It's a very philosophical question.
How do we measure happiness?
And so what we did is we,we, we created a composite.
measure of, we calledit relationship quality.
So one of those componentswas relationship satisfaction.
So that included questions like,all things considered, how happy
are you in your relationship?
So very direct.
(08:36):
Another one of thecomponents was conflict.
So how often are you gettinginto fights with your partner?
You know, yelling orscreaming, things like that.
So conflict.
And then the third one was somethingcalled high maintenance interactions.
How difficult or easy isit to talk to your partner?
Are the interactions relatively smoothor are they a little bit more volatile?
(08:57):
And so we created an index ofrelationship quality that we measured
at six different time points.
Evan Sparks (09:03):
So when you, when you look at those three things going into that
index, What were the effects of, on thedifferent buckets in the experiment on
the, you know, separate accounts, jointaccounts, and the no intervention folks?
Jenny Olson (09:15):
Yeah, so for the, the key results before I share the key
results, one thing I want to mentionis that in every longitudinal study
of marriage, what we expect to see isa decline in satisfaction over time.
So on average, after the weddingday, after the cake is eaten, the
dress is worn, the dances are had,people become less happy over time.
And I, you know, kind of joke with myhusband about this, of like, you know,
(09:38):
because we're in the thick of havingchildren right now, and we're like,
our weekends are not going to Costco.
Like that, you know, you'redoing kind of a little bit more
of these mundane realities.
And so couples on average become alittle bit less happier over time.
So that's what we found in couplesthat were randomly assigned to
the no intervention condition.
On average, they became less happy.
People that were in the separate conditionalso, on average, became less happy.
(10:01):
However, the couples who were randomlyassigned to merge their finances actually
were buffered against that decline.
So they trended in an upward direction.
It was not a significantly, youknow, increasing trajectory, but
they were buffered against thatdecline to the extent that at the
end of that two year experiment.
(10:21):
Couples in the joint accountcondition were significantly
happier than couples in the other.
Evan Sparks (10:27):
I'm going to take a quick moment here to thank
our sponsor for this episode.
R&T Deposit Solutions provides banks,broker dealers, trust companies, and
other financial institutions withflexible cash sweep and deposit funding
solutions designed to protect theircustomers funds and grow their businesses.
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And thanks again to R&T DepositSolutions for sponsoring this episode.
(10:50):
How do you describe the, you know,the effect of, how do you describe
the effect of the kinds of accounts?
Structure that couples chose or,or practiced on, on, on the actual
relationship quality versus theother factors that go into it.
Jenny Olson (11:06):
Yeah.
So because we've randomly assignedcouples, we can make, we can take better
steps toward understanding causality.
So our results really do suggestthat having a joint bank account
improves relationship quality.
Yeah.
So it's not necessarily the case thathappier couples are more likely to merge.
And in fact, we looked at that.
So we looked at whether or not there weredifferences at intake between the people
(11:29):
that stayed in the experiment or didn't,were there other variables going on?
And we actually looked at every single.
Variable that we collectedat baseline and across.
I want to say it was over70 different variables.
There was very little evidenceof systematic differences.
And so it really suggests thatit's the bank account structure
(11:49):
that's driving the changes.
Evan Sparks (11:51):
That's fascinating.
So, you know, coming back to thinkingabout, you know, what what financial
planners, wealth planners, bank,you know, personal bankers can, can
take home with this conversation.
Sounds like, you know, to the extent thatbankers are making recommendations about
things, this is, this research has directbearing on how you're going to, on, on, on
(12:14):
the, You know, the long term satisfactionof the people that you're advising.
You know, do you have any thoughtson what, what bankers and and wealth
planners can do to use this researchin terms of how they communicate and
make recommendations to their clients?
Jenny Olson (12:30):
Absolutely.
So, and this is one of the big reasons wewanted to do this work is like actually,
you know, what is the recommendationthat we offer a new couples who are
just starting out and financial serviceprofessionals and what our results
suggest is that it is a good ideato create joint financial products.
You know, products that are designedto involve more than one person.
(12:51):
These aren't just individualendeavors, these are joint endeavors.
And a lot of financial decisionsare not made independently.
They, they tend to bemade with another partner.
And if couples are happier as afunction of this, they're probably
more likely to keep coming back, right?
To those, to those banking relationships.
And so we really advocate for,you know, involving both partners
(13:12):
in that financial journey.
Evan Sparks (13:14):
Yeah.
That's a great, a great, a great thought.
The you know, as you look ahead,where are you, what are you thinking
in terms of where you'd like to takethis kind of research in the future?
And what are you you know, what,what are you working on now?
I know you said you've beenworking on this for a decade.
What are you working on now interms of your research interests
as a, as a, as an academic?
Jenny Olson (13:35):
Yeah, so there are so many different research questions
to pursue based upon this.
One of the questions that we've beenthinking about is understanding the
flow of income through these accounts.
Like, is it great, you know,maybe it makes more sense to have
maybe some separation that thenflows into one joint account.
How do couples use these accounts?
So our results really onlyspeak to the structure itself.
(13:56):
We don't know what theconversations were like around it.
These accounts, you know, werepeople actually happier with
how they were managing moneyas it entered into the account?
I have some work on financial infidelityThis is my seat topic, you know Is it
possible that financial infidelity is morelikely when you have separate accounts
because it's easier to hide differentexpenditures, we I'm also having some
(14:20):
work on financial conversations as youlikely know and your listeners, you
know talking about money is difficultIt brings up a lot of childhood
feelings and values and you realizethat you and your partner might not
be on the same page when it comes tofinancial goal alignment, for example.
And so I have some research suggestingthat having a financial conversation
(14:40):
with your partner is actually a littleless scary than you think it is.
And so there's this misprediction.
And so we're working on developinginterventions to prompt couples
to have more fruitful, productiveconversations around their finances.
Evan Sparks (14:52):
Great.
One more, one more question juston, on this and in terms of some of
the the research that you're you'vedone and are, are considering doing.
What does the you know, obviouslythere are a lot of couples who like to
specialize within the couple in terms of,you know, who Does dishes who does, you
know, takes the kid, the kids to schoolwho does, you know, who pays the bills?
(15:14):
Even within the couples who havejoint accounts, did you, did your
research get into who within thecouple was principally responsible
for perhaps managing that jointaccount or making financial decisions?
And does that have any bearing onthe research about on the findings
about relationship quality?
Jenny Olson (15:31):
You know, I love that question.
Unfortunately, we don't have anyindication on who was the quote chief
financial officer of the household.
So we're not really sure what washappening, but I do have another paper
that was just published where we lookat financial decisions within a couple
tend to be driven by the couple who hasgreater subjective financial knowledge.
In other words, how couples makedecisions might be more a function
(15:52):
about confidence versus literacy.
And so we have some indications of that.
Evan Sparks (15:58):
Thanks to R&T Deposit Solutions for sponsoring this episode.
Thanks so much for listening.
And we'll be back withyou again, very soon.
From the American Bankers Association, this is a
(00:02):
special Valentine's Day episode ofthe ABA Banking Journal podcast.
Welcome back.
I'm Evan Sparks.
Today's episode is presented withlove by R& T Deposit Solutions.
And I am delighted to share a classicepisode occasioned by a story that came
out in the New York Times earlier thisweek with the headline, "Love and money.
(00:22):
Why sharing accounts isgood for your relationship.
Fewer couples are combining their bankaccounts, but that trend may not promote
partners overall financial health." Nowif you read through the article, the
reporter spends a lot of time talkingto a an academic named Jenny Olson.
Jenny is an assistant professor ofmarketing at the Kelley School of
Business at Indiana University and sheis an expert on the effects a joint
(00:46):
account has on couples' well being.
So as we are here in the season ofrelationships, we actually talked with
Jenny about a year and a half ago hereon the ABA Banking Journal podcast,
and it was such a great episode.
I wanted to bring it back to everybodytoday so that you can get a sense of
some of the research on joint accountsand how they affect relationship
health and couples' wellbeing.
(01:07):
So to all of you out there wishing youa very happy Valentine's Day and enjoy
this classic episode of the podcast.
Jenny Olson (01:14):
Cause we randomly assigned couples, we can take better
steps toward understanding causality.
So our results really do suggestthat having a joint bank account
improves relationship quality
Evan Sparks (01:33):
from the American bankers association.
This is the ABA banking journal podcast.
Welcome back.
I'm Evan Sparks.
Today's episode is presented by Rand T deposit solutions, and we're
here to discuss something that youmay have thought a lot about, or you
may not have thought about at all.
So in my case, I've beenmarried for 13 years.
And when my wife and I got married,we just went to the bank and switched
(01:55):
to, so I, you know, my wife, she movedall her money over to my account and
we switched it into a joint account.
And it was a simple piece ofpaperwork and we were done.
And we haven't thought aboutit much in the past 13 years.
It's been a decision that I honestlykind of felt kind of neutral about.
It was just seemed like itwas the most convenient thing.
For, you know, her to pay her bills,me to pay my bills, us to pay our
(02:16):
shared bills out of one account.
The interest, there is some newresearch that has been published in
the Journal of Consumer Research thatsheds some light on what the effects of
how couples structure their finances.
are and there are actually somemore interesting effects than one
that you might actually think.
It's not entirely the kind ofthe neutral decision that I for
(02:38):
a long time have thought it was.
And then a lot of peopleprobably think it is.
So I'm really delighted that to haveas our guest today, Jenny Olson.
Jenny is an assistant professorof marketing at the Kelly school
of business at Indiana university.
And also the off one of the lead authorof common sense bank account structure
and couples relationship dynamics.
That was recently published in thejournal of consumer research So
(03:00):
jenny, thank you so much for beingon the show and talk telling us a
little bit more about your research
Jenny Olson (03:04):
Yes, thank you for having me evan and I like that You
shared your own story in terms ofhow you decided to choose your bank
account because we were in a similarsituation Which is partly where this
research came from oddly enough, somy fiance at the time he was very much
like Hey, let's go join our account.
I remember being like waitNo, I like my autonomy.
(03:25):
I don't want you to seeeverything that I'm doing.
I like separate accounts.
And, you know, as an academic,I was like, hmm, what does the
literature show on this question?
And it soon became evident thatthere wasn't a lot of research
on this very fundamental decisionthat so many people face.
And so, that's kind of where thisproject started and we went from there.
Evan Sparks (03:45):
So just to level set, what, what's the current breakdown in
terms of how couples structure theirjoint or separate account status?
Jenny Olson (03:53):
Yeah, so there are, there are a few papers out there that look
at these descriptive statistics, and Ibelieve that it's around 50 to 60 percent
will have completely joint accounts.
So it is the, the Favorite option, butthere's also a substantial proportion
of people that have a blend, so theymight have some joints on separate,
and I want to say it's about 10 to15 percent have completely separate.
Evan Sparks (04:16):
Okay.
All right.
So that's, that's interesting and it'scertainly something again I, you know, I.
I've never thought about thisas a contributing factor to, you
know, 13 happy years of marriage.
But the but I know you were curiousabout this and you, you and this,
your coauthors have put together, puttogether this really interesting study
to examine, you know, what, what,what were you trying to, to evaluate?
(04:37):
The, on the effects of couples decisionsabout how to structure their finances.
Jenny Olson (04:43):
Sure.
So kind of taking a step back, one ofthe, the things that we, we found when
we were doing a literature review onthis question, you know, so again, I went
to Scott Rick, who was my dissertationchair at the time, and my co-author
on the paper, and I was like, what?
What's the best thing to do?
Like, what does the literature show?
And he said, you know what, it's funny.
You bring this up because I'vebeen talking to Deb small and
Eli Finkel about this question.
And so we all kind of huddled togetherand started thinking through this.
(05:07):
And there were a few papers that showeda correlation between bank account
structure and marital satisfaction.
So on average couples who had jointaccounts ended to report being happier.
And.
We thought, well, but that's not causal.
Like, is it possible that, you know,our joint accounts making people
happier or are happier people simplymore likely to join, or is there some
(05:30):
third factor that's driving this?
So that really prompted us to lookat this in an experimental context.
And, and so we knew that we wouldhave to manipulate this variable.
And so I can explain the experiment a bit.
Yes,
Evan Sparks (05:43):
please do.
I'd love to like, I think it's greatfor listeners to have a little sense
of the background of the experiment.
Jenny Olson (05:47):
Yeah.
So what we did, so what we did is werecruited ultimately a total of 230
couples who were either engaged to bemarried or entering their first marriage.
And so we wanted to hold thatvariable constant Because financial
things get a little bit more complexas you add more layers to it.
And so everyone started theexperiment with separate accounts.
(06:08):
So we recruited people who have separate.
And then what we did is we randomlyassigned them to one of three conditions.
So we said, we want you to keepseparate accounts, do not open
anything joint, maintain thoseseparate accounts for two years.
In the experimental condition, theone that we were really interested in,
we randomly assigned another subsetof that sample to merge finance.
(06:31):
We told them that we want you todiscontinue use of your separate
accounts, merge accounts, and keep themjoint, use them for the next two years.
And then in the no intervention condition,I like to think of this as a choose your
own adventure We invited couples to dowhat they would naturally do like you can
manage your finances in any way you wantfor the next two Years, and so we followed
(06:52):
these couples then for two years As theytransition to marriage And we surveyed
both partners at six different time pointsbecause that would help us look at the
changes Or their trajectories, you know,are they becoming happier over time?
Are they becoming less happy over time?
And what are the differencesacross those three conditions?
Evan Sparks (07:12):
So, so that, that, that's fascinating structure and,
you know, about how many couples didyou have in, in the experiment total?
Jenny Olson (07:20):
We had 230 couples total, and so they were split across the conditions.
Now we've over sampled or we overassigned couples to the joint account
expecting some attrition because that'sthe only condition where we invited
couples to actively do something.
Evan Sparks (07:35):
Okay.
That's so.
You know, I know, so you're lookinghere at you're, you're serving them
along the way, you're looking atlike their happiness and their the
degree to which they kind of feel likethey're making decisions together.
What are, what, what, what arethe, what are the specific things?
I mean, cause I mean, you know,I, I used to work at an organ at a
think tank and there was a scholarthere who did research on happiness.
(07:57):
And, and I know that, you know,it's kind of a, it's a, how, how do
you measure happiness, et cetera.
Right.
You know what, What are the specificvariables that you were looking
for to evaluate whether coupleswere happier and whether they were,
you know, having a greater degreeof harmony in their relationship?
Jenny Olson (08:15):
It's a very philosophical question.
How do we measure happiness?
And so what we did is we,we, we created a composite.
measure of, we calledit relationship quality.
So one of those componentswas relationship satisfaction.
So that included questions like,all things considered, how happy
are you in your relationship?
So very direct.
(08:36):
Another one of thecomponents was conflict.
So how often are you gettinginto fights with your partner?
You know, yelling orscreaming, things like that.
So conflict.
And then the third one was somethingcalled high maintenance interactions.
How difficult or easy isit to talk to your partner?
Are the interactions relatively smoothor are they a little bit more volatile?
(08:57):
And so we created an index ofrelationship quality that we measured
at six different time points.
Evan Sparks (09:03):
So when you, when you look at those three things going into that
index, What were the effects of, on thedifferent buckets in the experiment on
the, you know, separate accounts, jointaccounts, and the no intervention folks?
Jenny Olson (09:15):
Yeah, so for the, the key results before I share the key
results, one thing I want to mentionis that in every longitudinal study
of marriage, what we expect to see isa decline in satisfaction over time.
So on average, after the weddingday, after the cake is eaten, the
dress is worn, the dances are had,people become less happy over time.
And I, you know, kind of joke with myhusband about this, of like, you know,
(09:38):
because we're in the thick of havingchildren right now, and we're like,
our weekends are not going to Costco.
Like that, you know, you'redoing kind of a little bit more
of these mundane realities.
And so couples on average become alittle bit less happier over time.
So that's what we found in couplesthat were randomly assigned to
the no intervention condition.
On average, they became less happy.
People that were in the separate conditionalso, on average, became less happy.
(10:01):
However, the couples who were randomlyassigned to merge their finances actually
were buffered against that decline.
So they trended in an upward direction.
It was not a significantly, youknow, increasing trajectory, but
they were buffered against thatdecline to the extent that at the
end of that two year experiment.
(10:21):
Couples in the joint accountcondition were significantly
happier than couples in the other.
Evan Sparks (10:27):
I'm going to take a quick moment here to thank
our sponsor for this episode.
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other financial institutions withflexible cash sweep and deposit funding
solutions designed to protect theircustomers funds and grow their businesses.
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And thanks again to R&T DepositSolutions for sponsoring this episode.
(10:50):
How do you describe the, you know,the effect of, how do you describe
the effect of the kinds of accounts?
Structure that couples chose or,or practiced on, on, on the actual
relationship quality versus theother factors that go into it.
Jenny Olson (11:06):
Yeah.
So because we've randomly assignedcouples, we can make, we can take better
steps toward understanding causality.
So our results really do suggestthat having a joint bank account
improves relationship quality.
Yeah.
So it's not necessarily the case thathappier couples are more likely to merge.
And in fact, we looked at that.
So we looked at whether or not there weredifferences at intake between the people
(11:29):
that stayed in the experiment or didn't,were there other variables going on?
And we actually looked at every single.
Variable that we collectedat baseline and across.
I want to say it was over70 different variables.
There was very little evidenceof systematic differences.
And so it really suggests thatit's the bank account structure
(11:49):
that's driving the changes.
Evan Sparks (11:51):
That's fascinating.
So, you know, coming back to thinkingabout, you know, what what financial
planners, wealth planners, bank,you know, personal bankers can, can
take home with this conversation.
Sounds like, you know, to the extent thatbankers are making recommendations about
things, this is, this research has directbearing on how you're going to, on, on, on
(12:14):
the, You know, the long term satisfactionof the people that you're advising.
You know, do you have any thoughtson what, what bankers and and wealth
planners can do to use this researchin terms of how they communicate and
make recommendations to their clients?
Jenny Olson (12:30):
Absolutely.
So, and this is one of the big reasons wewanted to do this work is like actually,
you know, what is the recommendationthat we offer a new couples who are
just starting out and financial serviceprofessionals and what our results
suggest is that it is a good ideato create joint financial products.
You know, products that are designedto involve more than one person.
(12:51):
These aren't just individualendeavors, these are joint endeavors.
And a lot of financial decisionsare not made independently.
They, they tend to bemade with another partner.
And if couples are happier as afunction of this, they're probably
more likely to keep coming back, right?
To those, to those banking relationships.
And so we really advocate for,you know, involving both partners
(13:12):
in that financial journey.
Evan Sparks (13:14):
Yeah.
That's a great, a great, a great thought.
The you know, as you look ahead,where are you, what are you thinking
in terms of where you'd like to takethis kind of research in the future?
And what are you you know, what,what are you working on now?
I know you said you've beenworking on this for a decade.
What are you working on now interms of your research interests
as a, as a, as an academic?
Jenny Olson (13:35):
Yeah, so there are so many different research questions
to pursue based upon this.
One of the questions that we've beenthinking about is understanding the
flow of income through these accounts.
Like, is it great, you know,maybe it makes more sense to have
maybe some separation that thenflows into one joint account.
How do couples use these accounts?
So our results really onlyspeak to the structure itself.
(13:56):
We don't know what theconversations were like around it.
These accounts, you know, werepeople actually happier with
how they were managing moneyas it entered into the account?
I have some work on financial infidelityThis is my seat topic, you know Is it
possible that financial infidelity is morelikely when you have separate accounts
because it's easier to hide differentexpenditures, we I'm also having some
(14:20):
work on financial conversations as youlikely know and your listeners, you
know talking about money is difficultIt brings up a lot of childhood
feelings and values and you realizethat you and your partner might not
be on the same page when it comes tofinancial goal alignment, for example.
And so I have some research suggestingthat having a financial conversation
(14:40):
with your partner is actually a littleless scary than you think it is.
And so there's this misprediction.
And so we're working on developinginterventions to prompt couples
to have more fruitful, productiveconversations around their finances.
Evan Sparks (14:52):
Great.
One more, one more question juston, on this and in terms of some of
the the research that you're you'vedone and are, are considering doing.
What does the you know, obviouslythere are a lot of couples who like to
specialize within the couple in terms of,you know, who Does dishes who does, you
know, takes the kid, the kids to schoolwho does, you know, who pays the bills?
(15:14):
Even within the couples who havejoint accounts, did you, did your
research get into who within thecouple was principally responsible
for perhaps managing that jointaccount or making financial decisions?
And does that have any bearing onthe research about on the findings
about relationship quality?
Jenny Olson (15:31):
You know, I love that question.
Unfortunately, we don't have anyindication on who was the quote chief
financial officer of the household.
So we're not really sure what washappening, but I do have another paper
that was just published where we lookat financial decisions within a couple
tend to be driven by the couple who hasgreater subjective financial knowledge.
In other words, how couples makedecisions might be more a function
(15:52):
about confidence versus literacy.
And so we have some indications of that.
Evan Sparks (15:58):
Thanks to R&T Deposit Solutions for sponsoring this episode.
Thanks so much for listening.
And we'll be back withyou again, very soon.
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