{"id":34833,"date":"2026-02-24T11:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T16:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/?p=34833"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T16:59:15","slug":"jesse-ellis-explores-roots-of-financial-misconduct-on-the-academic-minute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/article\/jesse-ellis-explores-roots-of-financial-misconduct-on-the-academic-minute\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesse Ellis Explores Roots of Financial Misconduct on The Academic Minute"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

Jesse Ellis<\/a>, the Alan T. Dickson Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Poole College of Management, recently appeared on The Academic Minute <\/em>\u2013 an NPR program based out of WAMC\/Northeast Public Radio, highlighting professors from top institutions and their research. Ellis discussed his research on how childhood environments affect financial advisors\u2019 ethical codes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellis says that \u201cabout one in thirteen financial advisors has a record of misconduct.\u201d Noting that regulations and market incentives aren\u2019t enough to stop this, he dove more into what created personal ethics. Specifically, \u201cWe asked whether advisors\u2019 professional conduct is shaped by the ethical climate of their childhood hometowns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the study, \u201cWe tracked more than 86,000 financial advisors from their childhood addresses into their adult careers. Using regional data on political corruption, corporate fraud, and other ethical violations, we built a misbehavior index capturing each area\u2019s ethical climate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They found that \u201cadvisors raised in Staten Island show misconduct rates around 16 percent; those from Omaha just over 2 percent. Even after advisors move across the country, childhood hometown culture predicts misconduct more strongly than their current location\u2019s culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellis concludes that \u201cmonitoring and reputation help, but ethical behavior in finance also reflects the moral standards we internalize growing up \u2014 what Adam Smith called the impartial spectator that guides us when no one is watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read or listen to his entire segment on The Academic Minute<\/em>\u2019s Substack<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n

Jesse Ellis<\/a>, the Alan T. Dickson Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Poole College of Management, recently appeared on The Academic Minute <\/em>\u2013 an NPR program based out of WAMC\/Northeast Public Radio, highlighting professors from top institutions and their research. Ellis discussed his research on how childhood environments affect financial advisors\u2019 ethical codes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellis says that \u201cabout one in thirteen financial advisors has a record of misconduct.\u201d Noting that regulations and market incentives aren\u2019t enough to stop this, he dove more into what created personal ethics. Specifically, \u201cWe asked whether advisors\u2019 professional conduct is shaped by the ethical climate of their childhood hometowns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the study, \u201cWe tracked more than 86,000 financial advisors from their childhood addresses into their adult careers. Using regional data on political corruption, corporate fraud, and other ethical violations, we built a misbehavior index capturing each area\u2019s ethical climate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They found that \u201cadvisors raised in Staten Island show misconduct rates around 16 percent; those from Omaha just over 2 percent. Even after advisors move across the country, childhood hometown culture predicts misconduct more strongly than their current location\u2019s culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellis concludes that \u201cmonitoring and reputation help, but ethical behavior in finance also reflects the moral standards we internalize growing up \u2014 what Adam Smith called the impartial spectator that guides us when no one is watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read or listen to his entire segment on The Academic Minute<\/em>\u2019s Substack<\/a>.<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Poole College finance professor explained how the place where a financial advisor is born and raised influences their moral compass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39405,"featured_media":34834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"displayCategoryID\":170,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"The Poole College finance professor explained how the place where a financial advisor is born and raised influences their moral compass.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105,170,77],"tags":[315,124,327,673],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-34833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-in-the-news","category-newswire","tag-ellis","tag-finance","tag-in-the-news","tag-the-academic-minute"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":170,"name":"In the News","slug":"in-the-news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":170,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":388,"filter":"raw"},"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34833"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34860,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34833\/revisions\/34860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34833"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=34833"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=34833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}