Intermediaries’ Incentives across Share Classes in the Same Fund
研究发现同一基金的不同零售份额类别因分销费用不同，中介机构对业绩差的份额推荐意愿不同，分销费用高的份额对业绩更不敏感，这对理解基金销售中的利益冲突有帮助。
We provide supporting evidence that intermediaries’ incentives vary across retail share classes in the same fund. We find that when a fund has multiple share classes with different distribution fees, flow is less sensitive to poor performance for share classes with higher distribution fees. These results are more pronounced for funds when intermediaries are more inclined to favor one share class over another—specifically, for funds serving only retail investors, having a large dispersion in distribution fees across share classes, or having a share class that charges the maximum allowed distribution fee. Our results hold for funds with small spread in investors’ performance sensitivities and disappear in a placebo test. These findings cannot be explained by differences in share-class load fees or investor clientele.