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What renders financial advisors less treacherous? On commissions and reciprocity

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  • Vera Angelova

Abstract

An advisor is supposed to recommend a nancial product in the best interest of her client. However, the best product for the client may not always be the product yielding the highest commission to the advisor. Do advisors nevertheless provide truthful advice? If not, will a voluntary or obligatory upfront payment by clients induce more truthful advice? According to the results, both types of payment lead to more truthful advice. More generally, in a senderreceiver game with con ict of interest, an upfront payment to the sender by the receiver improves information transmission.

Suggested Citation

  • Vera Angelova, 2016. "What renders financial advisors less treacherous? On commissions and reciprocity," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2016-029, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2016-029
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    Cited by:

    1. Danilov, Anastasia & Biemann, Torsten & Kring, Thorn & Sliwka, Dirk, 2013. "The dark side of team incentives: Experimental evidence on advice quality from financial service professionals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 266-272.
    2. Vera Angelova & Tobias Regner, 2012. "Do voluntary payments to advisors improve the quality of financial advice? An experimental sender-receiver game," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-011, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    3. Behnk, Sascha & Barreda-Tarrazona, Iván & García-Gallego, Aurora, 2014. "The role of ex post transparency in information transmission—An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 45-64.
    4. Angelova, Vera & Regner, Tobias, 2013. "Do voluntary payments to advisors improve the quality of financial advice? An experimental deception game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 205-218.
    5. Sascha Behnk & Iván Barreda-Tarrazona & Aurora García-Gallego, 2012. "Reducing deception through subsequent transparency - An experimental investigation," Working Papers 2012/14, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

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