Abstract:A signaling game,where the occupational pension fund management institutions are senders to compete for licenses and the regulation authority is the receiver,is set up.Normative analysis shows that the separating equilibrium of market success exists,where highability institutions signal the competence with a cost higher than that of lowability institutions to be protected from strategic signal inference from lowability institutions.And the more the highability institutions are,the lower the signaling cost is.Signaling cost data from content analysis empirical study show the higher probability to win the licenses is accompanied with the higher signaling cost.