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Limited Awareness and Financial Intermediation

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  • Sarah Auster
  • Nicola Pavoni

Abstract

We study the market interaction between financial intermediaries and retail investors, who not only face uncertainty about the performance of the different investments but also have limited awareness of the available investment opportunities. Intermediaries compete for investors via the menu of investment options they offer. We show that when competition is limited, intermediaries restrict their offers to extreme options, e.g. very risky and very safe products. We also consider investor heterogeneity and show that the presence of sophisticated, fully aware investors can impose a negative externality on investors with limited awareness. Self-reported data from customers in the Italian retail investment sector support the key predictions of the model: the menus offered to less knowledgable investors contain few products, most of them are nevertheless perceived to be at the extremes.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Auster & Nicola Pavoni, 2022. "Limited Awareness and Financial Intermediation," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2022_252, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2022_252
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    Cited by:

    1. Johannes Gierlinger & Pau Milán, 2021. "The Limits to Local Insurance," Working Papers 1293, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. Zhengqing Gui & Yangguang Huang & Xiaojian Zhao, 2020. "Financial Fraud and Investor Awareness," HKUST CEP Working Papers Series 202002, HKUST Center for Economic Policy.
    3. Auster, Sarah & Pavoni, Nicola, 2024. "Optimal delegation and information transmission under limited awareness," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 19(1), January.
    4. Zhongwen Chen & Xiaojian Zhao, 2023. "Strategic Information Suppression in Borrowing and Pre-Lending Cognition: Theory and Evidence," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-24, May.
    5. Sarah Auster & Nicola Pavoni, 2021. "Optimal Delegation and Information Transmission under Limited Awareness," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 059, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unawareness; financial investments; delegation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage

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