Economic Preferences and Personality Traits Among Finance Professionals and the General Population

Martin Holmén; Felix Holzmeister; Michael Kirchler; Matthias Stefan; Erik Wengström

doi:10.1093/ej/uead038

Economic Preferences and Personality Traits Among Finance Professionals and the General Population

Martin Holmén, Felix Holzmeister, Michael Kirchler, Matthias Stefan^*, Erik Wengström

^*Corresponding author for this work

Helsinki GSE, Helsinki

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review

Abstract

Based on artefactual field experiments, we investigate whether finance professionals differ from a sample of the working population in terms of industry-relevant preferences and personality traits. When adjusting for socioeconomic characteristics, we find only few and less marked differences: finance professionals are less risk averse, less trustworthy, show higher levels of psychopathy and are more competitive than participants from the general population. In an additional survey, experts with hiring experience consider industry selection, self-selection and imprinting by industry norms as explanatory for the observed subject pool differences.

Original language	English
Peer-reviewed scientific journal	The Economic Journal
Volume	133
Issue number	656
Pages (from-to)	2949-2977
Number of pages	29
ISSN	0013-0133
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uead038
Publication status	Published - 31.07.2023
MoE publication type	A1 Journal article - refereed

Keywords

511 Economics

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