Trustworthiness in the Financial Industry

Arbeitspapier

The financial industry has been struggling with widespread misconduct and public mistrust. Here we argue that the lack of trust into the financial industry may stem from the selection of subjects with little, if any, trustworthiness into the financial industry. We identify the social preferences of business and economics students, and follow up on their first job placements. We find that during college, students who want to start their career in the financial industry are substantially less trustworthy. Most importantly, actual job placements several years later confirm this association. The job market in the financial industry does not screen out less trustworthy subjects. If anything the opposite seems to be the case: Even among students who are highly motivated to work in finance after graduation, those who actually start their career in finance are significantly less trustworthy than those who work elsewhere.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 13583

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Financial Institutions and Services: General ; Personnel Economics: Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
• Subject: trustworthiness ; financial industry ; selection ; social preferences ; experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gill, Andrej ; Heinz, Matthias ; Schumacher, Heiner ; Sutter, Matthias
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/224025
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET