A indústria financeira beneficia a sociedade?

After the Great Recession, finance has gotten a bad rap as a professional calling: A survey last December found that nearly half of Americans think that the financial system hurts the economy. Even among readers of The Economist—where bankers presumably have home-field advantage—a poll found that 57 percent disagreed with the statement that “financial innovation boosts economic growth.”

Luigi Zingales, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, has been studying the public’s post-recession loss of faith in the financial sector. In a speech delivered in early January at the annual meeting of the American Finance Association, Zingales argued that academic economists' views on the financial sector are too rosy in comparison to the public's mistrust.

Entrevista com professor Luigi Zingales continua aqui.

Resumo do artigo publicado no Journal of Finance;

Academics’ view of the benefits of finance vastly exceeds societal perception. This dissonance is at least partly explained by an underappreciation by academia of how, without proper rules, finance can easily degenerate into a rent-seeking activity. I outline what finance academics can do, from a research point of view and from an educational point of view, to promote good finance and minimize the bad.

ZINGALES, L. (2015), Presidential Address: Does Finance Benefit Society?. The Journal of Finance, 70: 1327–1363. doi:10.1111/jofi.12295