Would We have had this Crisis if Women had been Running the Financial Sector?

Abstract

The two main ethical approaches, utilitarianism and deontology, have not been able to prevent some of the behaviors underlying the financial crisis. A third ethics, the ethics of care might have been more effective than the other two in preventing the last financial crisis. Ethics of care is a feminist ethical theory concerned with relationships. It can be applied to a wide variety of relationships, including market relationships, and has been tested in experimental settings, suggesting that women tend to behave more in ways that can be understood in terms of relationships, whereas men tend to behave more in terms of rules. Using these ethical theories we analyze the crisis pointing at what are its causal behavioral attitudes and institutions and at the very low representation of women at the financial top.