"Assessing the costs and benefits of brokers in the mutual fund industry" by Professors Bergstresser, Chalmers, and Tufano analyzes the value-added of the broker sales channel. In their conclusion, they state that: "We begin with a positive hypothesis: the prominence of funds sold through brokers implies that brokers provide consumers with valued services. Our study has identified few, if any, of these benefits." This is a rather stark conclusion, when you consider that the great majority of mutual funds are sold through brokers and advisors. In buying mutual funds from brokers and advisors rather than purchasing directly from fund companies, individuals incur very substantial front-end or back-end sales load charges and substantially higher ongoing fund management and marketing expenses. [This link will take you to the Social Science Research Network, where you can download this paper.]