About the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index

The Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index is a measure of confidence Americans have in the private institutions in which they can invest their money. It is calculated quarterly on a sample of 1,000 American adults (see representative sample).

The Financial Trust Index was created by Professor Paola Sapienza (Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University) and Professor Luigi Zingales (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business) as a means to study the changes in trust in the financial industry and its impact on investors’ decisions. Information about the study's core topics (e.g. trust) is gathered quarterly; in different quarters, this information is supplemented with data on additional topics (e.g. real estate investment, opinion about recent events).

The mission of the Financial Trust Index is to monitor the level of trust Americans have in banks, the stock market, mutual funds, and large corporations, and to regularly assess how current events, policy and government intervention might affect this trust. The initiative is sponsored jointly by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and the survey is administered by Social Science Research Solutions.