We merge administrative information from a large German discount brokerage firm with regional data to examine if financial advisors improve portfolio performance. Our data track accounts of 32,751 randomly selected individual customers over 66 months and allow direct comparison of performance...

There is mounting evidence that retail investors make predictable, costly investment mistakes, including underinvestment, naive diversification, and payment of excessive fund fees. Over the past thirty-five years, however, participant-directed 401(k) plans have largely replaced professionally...