We merge administrative information from a large German discount brokerage firm with regional data to examine if financial advisors improve portfolio performance. Our data track accounts of 32,751 randomly selected individual customers over 66 months and allow direct comparison of performance...

We introduce professional financial advice in households? choice to hold risky financial assets. Consistent with the predictions from a formal model, we present evidence that households? trust in financial advice only matters when their perceived own financial capability is low. Instead, for...