Publisher Description

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 volumeexplores 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 dothey 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.

Author Biography

Olivia S. Mitchell is Department Chair and International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor of Insurance and Risk Management, and Professor of Business and Public Policy, as well as Director of the Pension Research Council and the Boettner Center on Pensions and Retirement Research at the Wharton School. Concurrently Dr. Mitchell is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Co-Investigator for the AHEAD/Health and RetirementStudies at the University of Michigan. Her main areas of research and teaching are pensions, insurance and risk management, public finance and labor markets, with an international focus. She receivedthe B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kent Smetters is the Boettner Chair Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research examines incomplete markets, investment risk management, and the interaction of risk management and public policy. Previously, he worked at the Congressional Budget Office and servedas Economics Policy Coordinator for the US Treasury. He received his Bachelor's degrees in Economics and Computer Science from The Ohio State University and his Ph.D. in Economics from HarvardUniversity.

Table of Contents

1: Olivia S. Mitchell and Kent Smetters: The Market for Retirement Financial Advice: An Introduction 1I. What Do Financial Advisers Do?2: John A. Turner and Dana M. Muir: The Market for Financial Advisers3: Paula H. Hogan and Frederick H. Miller: Explaining Risk to Clients: An Advisory Perspective4: Mathew Greenwald, Andrew G. Biggs, and Lisa Schneider: How Financial Advisers and Defined Contribution Plan Providers Educate Clients and Participants about Social Security5: Alicia H. Munnell, Natalia Orlova, and Anthony Webb: How Important Is Asset Allocation To Americans Financial Retirement Security?6: Christopher L. Jones and Jason S. Scott: The Evolution of Workplace Advice7: Kelli Hueler and Anna Rappaport: The Role of Guidance in the Annuity Decision Making ProcessII. Measuring Performance and Impact8: Cathleen D. Zick and Robert N. Mayer: Evaluating the Impact of Financial Planners9: Angela A. Hung and Joanne K. Yoong: Asking For Help: Survey and Experimental Evidence on Financial Advice and Behavior Change10: Andreas Hackethal and Roman Inderst: How to Make the Market for Financial Advice Work11: Michael Finke: Financial Advice: Does it Make a Difference?12: Sarah A. Holden: When, Why, and How Do Mutual Fund Investors Use Financial Advisers?III. Market and Regulatory Considerations13: Arthur B. Laby: Harmonizing the Regulation of Financial Advisers14: Jason Bromberg and Alicia P. Cackley: Regulating Financial Planners: Assessing the Current System and Some Alternatives

Long Description

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.

Feature

Cutting-edge research in oversight and enhancement of the financial system and design of better retirement plan offerings
Based on country examples and real-world evidence
Latest addition to the Pension Research Council series

Details