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Gender Differences in Financial Advice

Tabea Bucher-Koenen¹; Andreas Hackethal²; Johannes Koenen³; Christine Laudenbach²

¹ ZEW–Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research and University of Mannheim (email: ) · ² SAFE and Goethe University Frankfurt (email: ) · ³ ARC Econ (email: )

Based on data gathered from 27,000 real-world meetings between financial advisors and clients of a large German bank, we show that advisors offer more self-serving advice to women, while men are more likely to receive sales fee rebates and less likely to be recommended expensive in-house multi-asset (IHMA) funds. Additional client and advisor surveys provide evidence consistent with statistical discrimination based on gender as a proxy for client financial sophistication, with female clients exhibiting lower financial literacy, confidence, and price sensitivity. Moreover, female advisors report less confidence in their own professional skills and engage in less discrimination than male colleagues. (JEL D83, G21, G51, G53, J16, L84)

DOI

10.1257/aer.20211024

Volume

115 (12)

Pages

4218-4252

Language

en

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