An advisor is supposed to recommend a financial product in the best interest of her client. However, the best product for the client may not always be the product yielding the highest commission to the advisor. Do advisors nevertheless provide truthful advice? If not, will a voluntary or...

The market for retail financial products (e.g. investment funds or insurance) is marred by information asymmetries. Clients are not well informed about the quality of these products. They have to rely on the recommendations of advisors. Incentives of advisors and clients may not be aligned, when...

The market for retail financial products (e.g. investment funds or insurances) is marred by information asymmetries. Clients are not well informed about the quality of these products. They have to rely on the recommendations of advisors. Incentives of advisors and clients may not be aligned,...

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) provide a clean opportunity and rich data to study the contribution of analysts to the functioning of capital markets. The assessments of freelancing ICO analysts vary in quality and exhibit biases due to the reciprocal interactions of analysts with ICO team...

Freelancing human experts play an important role in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). Expert ratings partially reflect the reciprocal network of ICO members and analysts. Ratings predict ICO success, but highly imperfectly so. Favorably rated ICOs tend to fail when more ratings reciprocate prior...