Is Cheating a Part of Banking Culture?

A new paper in Nature takes a scientific approach to the accusations of dishonesty in the banking industry. The researchers designed a coin-flip experiment where participants were given an incentive to cheat. One hundred twenty-eight bank employees—bankers, asset managers, traders, investment managers and staff from support units with an average of 11.5 years of experience in the industry—and 350 employees from non-banking professions were asked to toss a coin 10 times, then report the results online. They were told which outcome would be a winning toss, that a winning toss would pay $20 and that they could keep the winnings if they beat another group's results.