Does Soft Dollar Brokerage Benefit Portfolio Investors: Agency Problem or Solution?
- Author(s):
- Stephen Horan, D. Bruce Johnsen
- Posted:
- 2004
- Law & Economics #:
- 04-50
- Availability:
- Full text (most recent) on SSRN
ABSTRACT:
With soft dollar brokerage, institutional portfolio managers pay brokers 'premium' commission rates in exchange for rebates they use to buy third-party research. One hypothesis views this practice as a reflection of the agency problem in delegated portfolio management; another views it as a contractual solution to the agency problem that aligns the incentives of investors, managers, and brokers where direct monitoring mechanisms are inadequate. Using a database of institutional money managers, we find that premium commission payments are positively related to risk-adjusted performance, suggesting that soft dollar brokerage is a solution to agency problems. Moreover, premium commissions are positively related to management fees, suggesting that labor market competition does not punish managers for using soft dollars.