ABSTRACT
Trust is crucial for the economic system. However, trust in the financial system to be efficient, self-regulating and ultimately beneficial for all has been massively undermined by the global financial crisis. As Nobel Prize laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz underlined,
Even in a market economy, trust is the grease that makes society function. … In the current crisis, bankers lost our trust, and lost trust in each other. Economic historians have emphasized the role that trust played in the development of trade and banking. … The big lesson of this crisis is that despite all the changes in the last few centuries, our complex financial sector was still dependent on trust. When trust broke down, our financial system froze.
(2010: 289)