Property Rights to Client Relationships and Financial Advisor Incentives
利用美国券商招聘协议改革的准自然实验，发现将客户关系产权从公司转移给顾问后，顾问更愿意投资客户服务、减少投诉，支持了产权激励理论。
ABSTRACT We study the effect of a change in property rights on employee behavior in the financial advice industry. Our identification comes from staggered firm‐level entry into the Protocol for Broker Recruiting , which waived nonsolicitation clauses for advisor transitions among member firms, effectively transferring ownership of client relationships from the firm to the advisor. After the shock, advisors appear to tend to client relationships more by investing in client‐facing industry licenses, shifting to fee‐based advising, and reducing customer complaints. Our findings support property rights based investment theories of the firm and document offsetting costs to restricting labor mobility.