When do structured funds become too good to be true? An experiment

In this experiment, structured funds are sequentially offered to investors as an alternative to bonds. Our results show that the order in which information is presented generates significant biases in decision-making. These biases can have both positive and negative consequences on investors' financial behaviour. In fact, when the investment alternatives are made easier to compare, ‘too good to be true’ offers are more easily spotted. Simultaneously, when funds' expected performance shows an apparently positive trend, funds are more often chosen. The ‘too good to be true’ effect is alleviated by high transparency of the information on the funds return.