Trust, confidence, and the 2008 global financial crisis

Abstract

The 2008 global financial crisis has been compared to a "once-in-a-century credit tsunami," a disaster in which the loss of trust and confidence played key precipitating roles and the recovery from which will require the restoration of these crucial factors. Drawing on the analogy between the financial crisis and environmental and technological hazards, recent research on the role of trust and confidence in the latter is used to provide a perspective on the former. Whereas "trust" and "confidence" are used interchangeably and without explicit definition in most discussions of the financial crisis, this perspective uses the TCC model of cooperation to clearly distinguish between the two and to demonstrate how this distinction can lead to an improved understanding of the crisis. The roles of trust and confidence - both in precipitation and in possible recovery - are discussed for each of the three major sets of actors in the crisis, the regulators, the banks, and the public. The roles of trust and confidence in the larger context of risk management are also examined; trust being associated with political approaches, confidence with technical. Finally, the various stances that government can take with regard to trust - such as supportive or skeptical - are considered. Overall, it is argued that a clear understanding of trust and confidence and a close examination of the specific, concrete circumstances of a crisis - revealing when either trust or confidence is appropriate - can lead to useful insights for both recovery and prevention of future occurrences. © 2009 Society for Risk Analysis.