Trust and Financial Crisis Experiences

Using eight annual surveys from the Netherlands between 2006 and 2013, we examine whether financial crisis experiences affect trust in banks, trust in the banking supervisor, and generalized trust. Adverse experiences during the financial crisis do not only directly lower trust in banks, but also have a negative effect on generalized trust. Customers of a bank that ran into problems have less trust in banks than respondents without this experience. Our results also indicate that respondents who were customer of a bank that failed have a significantly stronger decline of generalized trust than respondents without this experience. Personal financial crisis experiences do not have a significant effect on trust in the banking supervisor.
 
Keywords: trust, bank bailout, bank failure, financial crisis, households, survey data.
JEL-codes: D10, D84, E58.

Working paper no. 389