Little is known about the extent of information-sharing within couples, and the drivers of information transmission. To provide new evidence on this topic, we conduct an online survey of 2,200 middle-aged couples in the US. Our focus is on expectations about Social Security benefits. We first show that expectations about a given spouse’s Social Security benefits are often misaligned within a couple: the correlation between partners’ expectations is 0.68, significantly below full agreement. We present descriptive evidence of frictions driving the imperfect correlation. To establish causal evidence of frictions and information sharing, we implement a randomized information experiment paired with a sequential survey design, where the index spouse receives targeted information, and the other is surveyed a few days later. Our findings reveal that information provided to the index spouse partially spills over to their partner, with the average treatment effect on the second spouse’s expectations being about half that observed for the index spouse. Using detailed survey data on measures of communication frictions, cognitive barriers, and the value of information, we identify key drivers of information sharing. Spillovers are larger when communication barriers are low and when the information is particularly valuable.

Written with Adeline Delavande (University of Technology Sydney) and Gizem Kosar (Federal Reserve Bank of New York)