IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2206.00117.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Disclosure of Investment Advisor and Broker-Dealer Relationships: Impact on Comprehension and Decision Making

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoqing Wan
  • Nichole R. Lighthall

Abstract

Recently enacted regulations aimed to enhance retail investors' understanding about different types of investment accounts. Toward this goal, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandated that SEC-registered investment advisors and broker-dealers provide a brief relationship summary (Form CRS) to retail investors. The present study examines the impact of this regulation on investors and considers its market implications. The effects of Form CRS were evaluated based on three outcome variables: perceived helpfulness, comprehension, and decision making. The study also examined whether personal characteristics, such as investment experience, influenced the disclosure's impact on decision making. Results indicated that participants perceived the disclosure as helpful and it significantly enhanced comprehension about the two types of investment accounts. Critically, participants also showed increased preference and choice for broker-dealers after the disclosure. Increased preference for broker-dealers was associated with greater investment experience, greater comprehension gains, and access to more information from a longer disclosure. These findings suggest that Form CRS may promote informed decision making among retail investors while simultaneously increasing the selection of broker-dealer accounts.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoqing Wan & Nichole R. Lighthall, 2022. "Disclosure of Investment Advisor and Broker-Dealer Relationships: Impact on Comprehension and Decision Making," Papers 2206.00117, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.00117
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.00117
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sumit Agarwal & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Neale Mahoney & Johannes Stroebel, 2015. "Regulating Consumer Financial Products: Evidence from Credit Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 111-164.
    2. Daniel E. Ho & Zoe C. Ashwood & Cassandra Handan-Nader, 2019. "New Evidence on Information Disclosure through Restaurant Hygiene Grading," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 404-428, November.
    3. George Loewenstein & Cass R. Sunstein & Russell Golman, 2014. "Disclosure: Psychology Changes Everything," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 391-419, August.
    4. John Beshears & James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2011. "How Does Simplified Disclosure Affect Individuals' Mutual Fund Choices?," NBER Chapters, in: Explorations in the Economics of Aging, pages 75-96, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ginger Zhe Jin & Phillip Leslie, 2003. "The Effect of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 409-451.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Adair Morse, 2011. "Information Disclosure, Cognitive Biases, and Payday Borrowing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(6), pages 1865-1893, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giné, Xavier & Mazer, Rafael Keenan, 2022. "Financial (dis-)information: Evidence from a multi-country audit study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    2. Lunn, Pete & McGowan, Féidhlim & Howard, Noel, 2018. "Do some financial product features negatively affect consumer decisions? a review of evidence," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS78, June.
    3. Cassandra Handan-Nader & Daniel E. Ho & Becky Elias, 2020. "Feasible Policy Evaluation by Design: A Randomized Synthetic Stepped-Wedge Trial of Mandated Disclosure in King County," Evaluation Review, , vol. 44(1), pages 3-50, February.
    4. Burke, Matt & Fry, John, 2019. "How easy is it to understand consumer finance?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 1-4.
    5. Alejandro Ponce & Enrique Seira & Guillermo Zamarripa, 2017. "Borrowing on the Wrong Credit Card? Evidence from Mexico," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1335-1361, April.
    6. repec:cie:wpaper:1408 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Scheld, Dominik & Stolper, Oscar, 2023. "Leveling the playing field? The effect of disclosing fund manager activeness to individual investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    8. Bruno Ferman, 2016. "Reading the Fine Print: Information Disclosure in the Brazilian Credit Card Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3534-3548, December.
    9. Badoer, Dominique C. & Costello, Charles P. & James, Christopher M., 2020. "I can see clearly now: The impact of disclosure requirements on 401(k) fees," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 471-489.
    10. Adrian Hillenbrand & André Schmelzer, 2015. "Beyond Information: Disclosure, Distracted Attention, and Investor Behavior," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2015_20, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    11. Keys, Benjamin J. & Wang, Jialan, 2019. "Minimum payments and debt paydown in consumer credit cards," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 528-548.
    12. Alan Elizondo & Enrique Seira, 2014. "Are Information Disclosure Mandates Effective? Evidence from the Credit Card Market," Working Papers 1407, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    13. Kovács, Balázs & Lehman, David W. & Carroll, Glenn R., 2020. "Grade inflation in restaurant hygiene inspections: Repeated interactions between inspectors and restaurateurs," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    14. O. Seizov & A. J. Wulf & J. Luzak, 2019. "The Transparent Trap: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on the Design of Transparent Online Disclosures in the EU," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 149-173, March.
    15. Kronlund, Mathias & Pool, Veronika K. & Sialm, Clemens & Stefanescu, Irina, 2021. "Out of sight no more? The effect of fee disclosures on 401(k) investment allocations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 644-668.
    16. Elizondo Alan & Seira Enrique, 2014. "Are Information Disclosure Mandates Effective? Evidence from the Credit Card Market," Working Papers 2014-18, Banco de México.
    17. Vokata, Petra, 2021. "Engineering lemons," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 737-755.
    18. Bruce Carlin & Arna Olafsson & Michaela Pagel, 2017. "FinTech Adoption Across Generations: Financial Fitness in the Information Age," NBER Working Papers 23798, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Tatiana Homonoff & Rourke O'Brien & Abigail B. Sussman, 2021. "Does Knowing Your FICO Score Change Financial Behavior? Evidence from a Field Experiment with Student Loan Borrowers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(2), pages 236-250, May.
    20. Enrique Seira & Alan Elizondo & Eduardo Laguna-Müggenburg, 2017. "Are Information Disclosures Effective? Evidence from the Credit Card Market," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 277-307, February.
    21. Jackson P. Lautier & Vladimir Pozdnyakov & Jun Yan, 2022. "On the Convergence of Credit Risk in Current Consumer Automobile Loans," Papers 2211.09176, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.00117. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.