We study a model of financial advice where investors rely on a financial expert (the advisor) to make their asset allocation choices. There is only one source of risk and the advisor is privately informed about the volatility of the return of the risky asset. Moreover, the advisor’s preferences are misaligned with those of his uninformed clients, and this conflict of interests cannot be solved by means of state-contingent monetary transfers. In equilibrium, investors delegate the investment decision to the financial advisor. However, they impose restrictions on the advisor’s choices. These restrictions take the form of a cap or a floor on the amount invested in the risky asset. The precise form of partial delegation that emerges depends on whether financial advice is exclusive or not, and in the case of non-exclusive advice, on whether the common advisor perceives investors’ asset allocations as complements or as substitutes. We also analyze the implications of non-exclusivity in financial advice on investment behavior and investors’ expected utility.
