The Principal-Agent Problem in the Context of Financial Advice

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Economics - Micro-economics, grade: 2,0, University of Hohenheim, language: English, abstract: This paper studies the relationship between investors and investment advisers with regard to the principal-agent theory. Especially, the payment of commissions, kick-backs or other inducements from product provider to financial adviser and their impact of product recommendations are the focus of this paper. At the end, this paper should answer the research question, to what extent is the investor-investment adviser relationship a principal-agent relationship and how do commission payments affect the decision of both participants. Furthermore, this paper contents the political aspect, especially the analysis of the latest German policy with regard to consumer protection in financial markets.

This paper is divided in six chapters. Chapter 2 is a definition and classification of various types of financial advisers. In chapter 3, this work elaborates the principal-agent theory and compare it to our case of financial advice. In chapter 4, we set up a model of the interdependence between product provider, adviser and customer. In addition, this model gives information about payments and related incentives. The following 5th chapter, analyzes the latest policy intervention of the European Union with regard to the German financial advice market. The last chapter is a conclusion of the previous chapters.