IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ioe/doctra/532.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Intermediary Commissions in a Regulated Market with Heterogeneous Customers

Author

Listed:
  • Bernardita Vial
  • Pilar Alcalde

Abstract

Several studies predict that in markets with intermediation, changes in regulation intended to benefit consumers may have negative consequences for welfare when firms set commissions. We argue that, even if commissions are exogenous, transparent, and paid by customers, policies to diminish intermediaries’ bias may have nontrivial effects on equilibrium outcomes. We provide evidence from a highly regulated retirement market by examining two subsequent policy changesthat reduced the commission differential between products. Some of the patterns of the demand side are consistent with biased advice, but others are less intuitive. Our model helps understand these patterns and also predicts the firms’ equilibrium reaction to commission levels. We show that, in many cases, prices move in the opposite direction to the intermediaries’ bias: when intermediaries are cheaper and less biased, more customers follow their advice, making demand less elastic. This change induces firms to increase prices, producing nontrivial effects on welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernardita Vial & Pilar Alcalde, 2020. "Intermediary Commissions in a Regulated Market with Heterogeneous Customers," Documentos de Trabajo 532, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
  • Handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:532
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economia.uc.cl/docs/doctra/dt-532.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Santosh Anagol & Shawn Cole & Shayak Sarkar, 2017. "Understanding the Advice of Commissions-Motivated Agents: Evidence from the Indian Life Insurance Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Daylian M. Cain & George Loewenstein & Don A. Moore, 2005. "The Dirt on Coming Clean: Perverse Effects of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 1-25, January.
    3. Roman Inderst & Marco Ottaviani, 2009. "Misselling through Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 883-908, June.
    4. Beyer, Max & de Meza, David & Reyniers, Diane, 2013. "Do financial advisor commissions distort client choice?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 117-119.
    5. Jennifer Brown & Dylan B. Minor, 2012. "Misconduct in Credence Good Markets," NBER Working Papers 18608, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Chen, Daniel L. & Levonyan, Vardges & Reinhart, S.Eric & Taksler, Glen, 2016. "Mandatory disclosure: Theory and evidence from industry-physician relationships," TSE Working Papers 16-716, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    7. Rocha, Roberto & Morales, Marco & Thorburn, Craig, 2008. "An empirical analysis of the annuity rate in Chile," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 95-119, March.
    8. Hunt Allcott & Richard L. Sweeney, 2017. "The Role of Sales Agents in Information Disclosure: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(1), pages 21-39, January.
    9. An, Mark Yuying, 1998. "Logconcavity versus Logconvexity: A Complete Characterization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 350-369, June.
    10. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo, 2007. "Influence through ignorance," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 931-947, December.
    11. Navin Kartik & Frances Xu Lee & Wing Suen, 2017. "Investment in concealable information by biased experts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(1), pages 24-43, March.
    12. Henry S. Schneider, 2012. "Agency Problems and Reputation in Expert Services: Evidence from Auto Repair," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 406-433, September.
    13. Riccardo Calcagno & Chiara Monticone, 2015. "Financial Literacy and the Demand for Financial Advice," Post-Print hal-02313173, HAL.
    14. Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2004. "The supply of information by a concerned expert," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 487-505, July.
    15. Marco Morales & Guillermo Larraín, 2017. "The Chilean Electronic Market for Annuities (SCOMP): Reducing Information Asymmetries and Improving Competition," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 42(3), pages 389-405, July.
    16. Sylvain Bourjade & Bruno Jullien, 2011. "The roles of reputation and transparency on the behavior of biased experts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(3), pages 575-594, September.
    17. Ginger Zhe Jin & Phillip Leslie, 2003. "The Effect of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 409-451.
    18. Calcagno, Riccardo & Monticone, Chiara, 2015. "Financial literacy and the demand for financial advice," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 363-380.
    19. Sendhil Mullainathan & Markus Noeth & Antoinette Schoar, 2012. "The Market for Financial Advice: An Audit Study," NBER Working Papers 17929, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Vivek Bhattacharya & Gastón Illanes & Manisha Padi, 2019. "Fiduciary Duty and the Market for Financial Advice," NBER Working Papers 25861, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Panle Jia Barwick & Parag A. Pathak & Maisy Wong, 2017. "Conflicts of Interest and Steering in Residential Brokerage," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 191-222, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alcalde, Pilar & Vial, Bernardita, 2022. "Implicit trade‐offs in replacement rates: Consumer preferences for firms, intermediaries and annuity attributes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lynn, Peter & Fumagalli, Laura & Muñoz-Bugarin, Jair, 2021. "Investigating the role of debt advice on borrowers’ well-being. An encouragement study on a new sample of over-indebted people in Britain," ISER Working Paper Series 2021-08, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    2. Cristian Escudero & José L. Ruiz, 2022. "Choosing the highest annuity payout: the role of intermediation and firm reputation," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 47(4), pages 973-1004, October.
    3. Chauhan, Yogesh & Dey, Dipanjan Kumar, 2020. "Does financial literacy affect the value of financial advice? A contingent valuation approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    4. Briana Chang & Martin Szydlowski, 2020. "The Market for Conflicted Advice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 867-903, April.
    5. Sorravich Kingsuwankul & Chloe Tergiman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2023. "Why do oaths work? Image concerns and credibility in promise keeping," Working Papers hal-04209489, HAL.
    6. Kramer, Marc M., 2016. "Financial literacy, confidence and financial advice seeking," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 198-217.
    7. Oscar A. Stolper & Andreas Walter, 2017. "Financial literacy, financial advice, and financial behavior," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 581-643, July.
    8. Felix Gottschalk, 2021. "Regulating Markets with Advice: An Experimental Study," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(1), pages 1-31, February.
    9. Liu, Bofan & Lu, Bin, 2023. "Can financial literacy be a substitute for financial advisers? Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    10. Cruciani, Caterina & Gardenal, Gloria & Rigoni, Ugo, 2021. "Trust-formation processes in financial advisors: A structural equation model," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 185-199.
    11. Mietzner, Mark & Molterer, Manuel, 2018. "You might not get what you need: The discrepancy between financial advice and commissions in Germany," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 167-170.
    12. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kerschbamer, Rudolf, 2020. "Credence goods in the literature: What the past fifteen years have taught us about fraud, incentives, and the role of institutions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    13. Hermansson, Cecilia & Jonsson, Sara & Liu, Lu, 2022. "The medium is the message: Learning channels, financial literacy, and stock market participation," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    14. Li, Keyang & Wu, Jing & Xing, Jianwei & Yan, Jubo, 2023. "Steering in the housing market: Incentive induced by the tax scheme," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    15. Lu, Xiaomeng & Zhang, Yong & Zhang, Yixing & Wang, Lin, 2020. "Can investment advisors promote rational investment? Evidence from micro-data in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 251-263.
    16. Schuler, Sebastian, 2020. "Capping Commissions in the Presence of Price Competition," MPRA Paper 104867, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Jeremy Burke & Angela A. Hung & Jack Clift & Steven Garber & Joanne K. Yoong, 2015. "Impacts of Conflicts of Interest in the Financial Services Industry," Working Papers WR-1076, RAND Corporation.
    18. Brenner, Lukas & Meyll, Tobias, 2020. "Robo-advisors: A substitute for human financial advice?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    19. Delis, Manthos & Galariotis, Emilios & Monne, Jerome, 2021. "Financial vulnerability and seeking expert advice: Evidence from a survey experiment," MPRA Paper 107095, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Guiso, Luigi & Pozzi, Andrea & Tsoy, Anton & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Mistrulli, Paolo Emilio, 2022. "The cost of steering in financial markets: Evidence from the mortgage market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1209-1226.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:532. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jaime Casassus (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iepuccl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.