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

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