PurposeScandals in the Australian financial services industry highlights the conflicts of interest between those who provide financial advice (financial planners) and their clients. Disclosure is a potential governance tool to manage these conflicts of interest by reducing asymmetries in...

PurposeThis paper researches the professionalization of financial planning in Australia. The authors investigate how the institutional logic of major institutions inhibits this occupation from moving toward a professional status.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses documentary analysis of...

This paper explores whether and why the pandemic differentially altered women and men's consumption behavior. After the 2020 wave of lockdown restrictions were lifted, women reduced consumption more than men. Data on self-reported reasons for consuming less reveals that gender differences in...

Tax-qualified vehicles helped U.S. private-sector workers accumulate $25Tr in retirement assets. An often-overlooked important institutional feature shaping decumulations from these retirement plans is the “Required Minimum Distribution” (RMD) regulation, requiring retirees to withdraw a...

Tax-qualified vehicles helped U.S. private-sector workers accumulate $25Tr in retirement assets. An often-overlooked important institutional feature shaping decumulations from these retirement plans is the "Required Minimum Distribution" (RMD) regulation, requiring retirees to withdraw a minimum...

We study the impact of trust in traditional finance on the consumer adoption of various fintech products, including cryptocurrencies, peer-to-peer lending, other crowdfunding, roboadvisors, and alternative payment solutions. Using a representative survey of Dutch households, an experiment on...

We study risk taking in a panel of subjects in Wuhan, China - before, during the COVID-19 crisis, and after the country reopened. Subjects in our sample traveled for semester break in January, generating variation in exposure to the virus and quarantine in Wuhan. Higher exposure leads subjects...

This paper studies why investors buy dividend-paying assets and how they time their consumption accordingly. We combine administrative bank data linking customers' consumption transactions and income to detailed portfolio data and survey responses on financial behavior. We find that private...

Using friendship data from Facebook, we study the effects of three aspects of social capital on household financial behavior. We find that the most important measure of social capital in explaining stock market and saving participation is Economic Connectedness, defined as the fraction of one's...

Cryptocurrencies have received growing attention from individuals, the media, and regulators. However, little is known about the investors whom these financial instruments attract. Using administrative data, we describe the investment behavior of individuals who invest in cryptocurrencies with...