PUBLIC OPPROBRIUM ought to be something to avoid. It has laid low mighty men in Hollywood accused of sexual misdeeds and sporting heroes caught pumping drugs. But it is not bad for everyone: for some populist politicians it can be fuel to their supporters’ fire. And a new study* suggests that Wall Street’s sins have a surprising side-effect: press reports of bad behaviour by investment banks during and after the financial crisis were good for business.
Thomas Roulet, of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, sifted all the editorial and opinion articles about the financial industry in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post published between 2006 and 2011. He built a list of 204 terms of reproach, signifying greed (eg, “avarice”), violence (“rapacity”), extreme risk-taking (“gambling”) or opacity (“manipulation”). He then searched…
