Sexism and the City: Irrational Behaviour, Cognitive Errors and Gender in the Financial Crisis

摘要

Many factors contributed to the current global financial crisis: an imperfect regulatory environment, a flawed system of credit ratings, inadequate deposit insurance systems and banking systems that were too large relative to national resources. Recent outrage, however, has been directed at one particular factor: the behaviour of the bankers. So badly were they perceived to have acted that in the United States, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would effectively confiscate the 2008 bonuses of employees of financial firms receiving significant bailout assistance.1 In the United Kingdom, tabloid headlines refer to Sir Fred Goodwin as a 'vulture' and Commons Leader Harriet Harmon tried to insist that the government would the strip the RBS leader of his contractually agreed upon pension.