Jonathan Reuter's Research

Publications

Do Ads Influence Editors? Advertising and Bias in the Financial Media (pre-publication version from August 2005; joint with Eric Zitzewitz)

Quarterly Journal of Economics

Non-technical presentation from conference titled "Financial Media and Investment Decisions: A Comparison of U.S. and Italian Financial Markets," hosted by Catholic University of Milan (May 2006)

Are IPO Allocations for Sale? Evidence from Mutual Funds (pre-publication version from June 2005)

Journal of Finance

Does Advertising Bias Product Reviews? Testing for Biased Wine Ratings (published version)

Journal of Wine Economics

When Should Firms Share Credit With Employees? Evidence from Anonymously Managed Mutual Funds (pre-publication version from April 2009; joint with Massimo Massa and Eric Zitzewitz)

Journal of Financial Economics

Investing for Retirement: The Moderating Effect of Fund Assortment Size on the 1/N Heuristic (pre-publication version from January 2012; joint with Maureen Morrin, Jeffrey Inman, Susan Broniarczyk, and Gergana Nenkov)

Journal of Marketing Research

How Do Retirees Value Life Annuities? Evidence from Public Employees (published version; joint with John Chalmers)

Review of Financial Studies

NBER Working Paper No. 15608

(posted December 2009; last revised December 2011)
Winner of the 2013 TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award

The Effect of Pension Design on Employer Costs and Employee Retirement Choices: Evidence from Oregon (pre-publication version from June 2013; joint with John Chalmers and Woodrow Johnson)

Journal of Public Economics

NBER Working Paper No. 18517

(posted November 2012; last revised March 2013)

Mutual Fund Performance and the Incentive to Generate Alpha (pre-publication version from August 2012; joint with Diane Del Guercio)

Journal of Finance

NBER Working Paper No. 17491

(posted October 2011; last revised July 2012)
Media mentions:

MarketWatch (October 16, 2011)

Finalist for the 2016 TIAA Paul A. Samuelson Award

Internet Appendix for Mutual Fund Performance and the Incentive to Generate Alpha (March 2013)

Heterogeneity in Target Date Funds: Strategic Risk-Taking or Risk Matching? (pre-publication version from February 2017; joint with Pierluigi Balduzzi)

Review of Financial Studies

NBER Working Paper No. 17886

(posted March 2012; last revised July 2015)
Previous titles: Heterogeneity in Target Date Funds: Optimal Risk-Taking or Risk Matching?, Heterogeneity in Target-Date Funds and the Pension Protection Act of 2006
Media mentions:

New York Times (January 9, 2015)

Forbes (June 18, 2012)

Freakonomics (March 5, 2012)

Finalist for the 2019 TIAA Paul A. Samuelson Award

Internet Appendix for Heterogeneity in Target Date Funds: Strategic Risk-Taking or Risk Matching? (April 2018)

Analyst Promotions within Credit Rating Agencies: Accuracy or Bias? (pre-publication version from May 2018; joint with Darren Kisgen, Jordan Nickerson, and Matt Osborn)

Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis

Is Conflicted Investment Advice Better than No Advice? (pre-publication version from December 2018; joint with John Chalmers)

Journal of Financial Economics

NBER Working Paper No. 18158

(posted June 2012; last revised September 2015)
Previous title: What is the Impact of Financial Advice on Retirement Portfolio Choice and Outcomes?
Media mentions:

U.S. News and World Report (June 26, 2012)

Forbes (June 18, 2012)

How Much Does Size Erode Mutual Fund Performance? A Regression Discontinuity Approach (pre-publication version from July 2015; joint with Eric Zitzewitz)

Review of Finance

NBER Working Paper No. 16329

(posted September 2010; last revised July 2015)
Media mentions:

New Zealand Herald (September 21, 2010)

Winner of 2022 Spangler/IQAM award for Best Investments Paper in Review of Finance

Do State-Sponsored Retirement Plans Boost Retirement Saving? (joint with John Chalmers, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Mingli Zhong)

AEA Papers and Proceedings 2022

Working Papers and Work in Progress

Demand-side and Supply-side Distortions in the Market for Financial Advice (November 2023; joint with Antoinette Schoar)

Under review at Annual Review of Financial Economics, where it was solicited

Alpha by Affiliation (November 2023; joint with Nimesh Patel and Tray Spilker)

Under review

Robo-Advice for Borrower Repayment Decisions (November 2022; joint with Ida Chak, Karen Croxson, Francesco D'Acunto, Alberto Rossi, and Jonathan Shaw)

First released as FCA Occasional Paper No 61 (August 2022); new version coming Spring 2024

Auto-Enrollment Retirement Plans for the People: Choices and Outcomes in OregonSaves (September 2022; joint with John Chalmers, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Mingli Zhong)

NBER Working Paper No. 28469

(posted February 2021); new version coming Spring 2024

New Evidence on the Demand for Advice within Retirement Plans (July 2022; joint with David Richardson)

First distributed as TIAA Institute Research Dialogue, Issue No 139 (December 2017)

Portfolio Delegation and 401(k) Plan Participant Responses to COVID-19 (June 2020; joint with David Blanchett and Michael Finke)

Have Passive Managers Benefited from the Dramatic Rise of Passive Investing? (October 2022; joint with Diane Del Guercio, Egemen Genc, and Hai Tran)

Developments in Retirement Plan Design

Solicited for inclusion in 2024 Pension Research Council volume

Public Testimony

Prepared testimony that I read into the public record before the Department of Labor on August 11, 2015. It excludes my comments during the question and answer period.

The two government documents that I reference in my testimony are "The Effects of Conflicted Investment Advice on Retirement Savings" by the Council of Economic Advisers and the "Regulatory Impact Analysis" by the Department of Labor.

Permanent Working Papers

Revisiting the Performance of Broker-Sold Mutual Funds (November 2015)

Insurance as Delegated Purchasing: Theory and Evidence from Health Care (February 2012; joint with Robin McKnight and Eric Zitzewitz)

NBER Working Paper No. 17857

(posted February 2012)

Demand for Financial Advice, Broker Incentives, and Mutual Fund Market Segmentation (March 2010; joint with Diane Del Guercio and Paula Tkac)

Insight: Reluctance of brokers to compete with direct-sold versions of the same funds forces mutual fund families to specialize in single retail segment.
Version dated July 2010 was distributed as NBER Working Paper No. 16312 . Analysis of return differences across distribution channels was added between March 2010 and July 2010 and later moved into Mutual Fund Performance and the Incentive to Generate Alpha

Unbundling the Value of Portfolio Management and Distribution in Retail Mutual Funds: Evidence from Subadvisory Contracts (August 2009; joint with Diane Del Guercio and Paula Tkac)

Insight: Subadvising simultaneously allows advisors to outsource portfolio management and subadvisors to outsource distribution. Both parties need to benefit.
Documents that mutual fund families tend to distribute their funds through a single retail segment.
Documents that subadvising allows both mutual fund managers and pension fund managers to enter new market segments.
Provides evidence on the range of fees paid to subadvisors and then regresses subadvisor fees on advisor and subadvisor characteristics.

Why Pick Stocks for the Competition? The Economics of Mutual Fund Sub-advisory Contracts (October 2007; joint with Diane Del Guercio and Paula Tkac)

Insight: The fact that some advisors hire other mutual fund managers as subadvisors implies that the mutual fund marketplace is highly segmented.
Introduces conditional logit to predict the choice of subadvisor.
Finds that "twin funds" offered by subadvisors also underperform.

Why Do Some Mutual Fund Families Pick Stocks for the Competition? (April 2007; joint with Diane Del Guercio and Paula Tkac)

Insight: The use of subadvisors by mutual funds is increasingly common, with some mutual fund families hiring other mutual fund families as portfolio managers.
Provides statistics on the use of subadvisors by investment objective.
Provides statistics on those mutual fund families that hire subadvisors and those families that work as subadvisors.
Documents that some families outsource virtually all of their portfolio management.
Replicates Chen et al.'s finding on underperformance of subadvised funds but then finds that underperformance is limited to cases where subadvisor manages its own mutual funds.

Who Determines When You Retire? Peer Effects and Retirement (August 2008; joint with John Chalmers and Woodrow Johnson)

Analysis has been incorporated into The Effect of Pension Design on Employer Costs and Employee Retirement Choices: Evidence from Oregon