Rationality suggests that advice-seeking investors receive benefits from financial advice that are comparable in value to the fees paid for such advice. However, empirical evidence documenting these benefits for U.S. investors has so far been lacking. We document that U.S. mutual fund investors...

Many college and university 403(b) plans restrict investment choices to the funds offered by TIAA-CREF, the current manager of over half of all 403(b) contributions. In the face of 2006 Internal Revenue Code changes some sponsors are dropping alternatives to TIAA-CREF. Using historical data, we...

Financial literacy and the need to improve it are getting more attention as a result of the economic crisis. The effectiveness of the programmes that target the improvement of financial literacy depends on knowing what factors influence people’s financial knowledge. This is exactly the reason...

This paper provides evidence that dividend and capital gains tax rates importantly influence household portfolio choices. Using data from the Surveys of Consumer Finances around the 2003 dividend tax reductions, I estimate the relationship between taxes and household portfolio dividend yields. I...

Financial literacy, moving to the forefront on account of the economic crisis, is a crucial element of the proper functioning of any society. Our goal is to identify the indicators of financial literacy in topic-related Hungarian and international literature which can then be used to draw...

Combining monthly survey data with matching trading records, we examine how individual investor perceptions change and drive trading and risk-taking behavior during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. We find that investor perceptions fluctuate significantly during the crisis, with risk tolerance...

When consumers concentrate their purchases at a single firm, a firm that offers more products than its rivals can gain market share for all its other products, as well. These spillovers induce firms to compete by offering a greater variety of products rather than lower prices, and a natural...

In recent years, the socially responsible investing (SRI) industry has become an important segment of international capital markets by incorporating ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) factors into investment selection and management processes. This study analyses whether SRI mutual funds...

It has become almost conventional wisdom that investors should avoid funds with high expense ratios. Like many nuggets of conventional wisdom, there is some truth, but many exceptions: some of the best funds come at the price of higher expense ratios. Financial planners need this type of...