Trust and Financial Crisis Experiences

Using eight annual household surveys for the Netherlands between 2006 and 2013, we find that respondents’ personal adverse financial crisis experiences do not only reduce their trust in banks, but also have an immediate negative effect on generalized trust. Respondents who were customers of a bank that ran into problems have less trust in banks than respondents without this experience. Respondents who were customer of a bank that failed have a significantly stronger decline of generalized trust than other respondents. Our results also suggest that personal financial crisis experiences do not have a significant direct effect on trust in the banking supervisor.