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What Drives Financial Complexity? A Look into the Retail Market for Structured Products

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  • Celerier , Claire
  • Vallee, Boris

Abstract

By focusing on the highly innovative retail market for structured products, we investigate the drivers of financial complexity. We perform a lexicographic analysis of the term sheets of 55,000 retail structured products issued in Europe since 2002. We observe that financial complexity has been steadily increasing, even after the recent financial crisis, and that financial complexity is more prevalent among distributors with a less sophisticated investor base. Complex products exhibit higher markups and lower ex post performance than simpler products. Using issuance level data spanning 15 countries over the period 2002-2010, we find that financial complexity increases when competition intensifies. These findings are consistent with financial institutions strategically using complexity to mitigate competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Celerier , Claire & Vallee, Boris, 2013. "What Drives Financial Complexity? A Look into the Retail Market for Structured Products," HEC Research Papers Series 1013, HEC Paris.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebg:heccah:1013
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    Cited by:

    1. Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola & Haliassos, Michael, 2015. "Does product familiarity matter for participation?," SAFE Working Paper Series 63, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2015.
    2. Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola & Haliassos, Michael, 2021. "Participation following sudden access," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 671-688.
    3. Michaelides, Alexander, 2014. "What Happened in Cyprus?," CEPR Discussion Papers 9993, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Rossen Valkanov & Andra Ghent, 2014. "Complexity in Structured Finance: Financial Wizardry or Smoke and Mirrors," 2014 Meeting Papers 104, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Junyong He & Helen Hui Huang & Shunming Zhang, 2020. "Ambiguity Aversion, Information Acquisition, and Market Opacity," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 21(2), pages 263-329, November.
    6. Arnold, Marc & Schuette, Dustin & Wagner, Alexander, 2014. "Neglected Risk: Evidence from Structured Product Counterparty Exposure," Working Papers on Finance 1406, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Apr 2016.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household Finance; Financial Literacy; Complexity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D18 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Protection
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid

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