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...

We present an intertemporal portfolio choice model where individuals invest in financial literacy, save, allocate their wealth between a safe and a risky asset, and receive a pension when they retire. Financial literacy affects the excess return and the cost of stock market participation. Since...

This paper employs contingent claims analysis to decompose the firm's systematic risk into the risk as- sociated with its assets in place and the risk arising from future growth opportunities. 5 Contingent claims analysis is well-suited to such decomposition, since a growth opportunity can be...