The Market for Retirement Financial Advice
The market for retirement financial advice has never been more important and yet more
in flux. The long-term shift away from traditional defined benefit pensions toward defined
contribution personal accounts requires all of us to be more sophisticated today than ever
before. However, the landscape for financial advice is changing all over the world, with
new rules and regulations transforming the financial advice profession. This volume
explores the market for retirement financial advice, to explain what financial advisors do
and how to measure performance and impact. Who are these professionals and what standards
must they abide by? How do they make money and what are their incentives? How can one
protect clients from bad advice, and what is good advice? Does advice alone effect changes
in personal habits? Answering these questions, along with new technology that will
decrease the delivery costs of advice, will play a transformative role in helping more
households receive the quality financial advice that they need. Accordingly, this volume
illuminates the market and regulatory challenges so as to enhance consumer, plan sponsor,
and regulator decisions.
1. The Market for Retirement Financial Advice:
An Introduction
I. WHAT DO FINANCIAL ADVISERS DO? ; 2. The Market for Financial Advisers ; 3.
Explaining Risk to Clients: An Advisory Perspective ; 4. How Financial Advisers and
Defined Contribution Plan Providers Educate Clients and Participants about Social Security
; 5. How Important Is Asset Allocation To Americans Financial Retirement Security? ; 6.
The Evolution of Workplace Advice ; 7. The Role of Guidance in the Annuity Decision Making
Process ;
II. MEASURING PERFORMANCE AND IMPACT ; 8. Evaluating the Impact of Financial Planners ;
9. Asking For Help: Survey and Experimental Evidence on Financial Advice and Behavior
Change ; 10. How to Make the Market for Financial Advice Work ; 11. Financial Advice: Does
it Make a Difference? ; 12. When, Why, and How Do Mutual Fund Investors Use Financial
Advisers? ;
III. MARKET AND REGULATORY CONSIDERATIONS ; 13. Harmonizing the Regulation of Financial
Advisers ; 14. Regulating Financial Planners: Assessing the Current System and Some
Alternatives
368 pages, Hardcover