Lunchtime Links: People misperceive overconfidence as actual ability

The blog Stumblingandmumbling has come across an interesting research paper on self-confidence.

Pointing out that self-confidence is often related to social class and therefore hereditary, it notes that: 'even small differences in initial confidence can result in diverging patterns of

human capital accumulation between otherwise identical individuals,' and that, 'a moderate degree of over-confidence can be beneficial in terms of the accumulation of human capital over the life course."

Stumbling and mumbling puts it more succinctly: "People misperceive overconfidence as actual ability. The overconfident job candidate is thus more likely to get the job than the more rational one."

Now is not the time to hide your light beneath bushels.

Should you be working for C Hoare and Co? (Fintag)

Kweku Adoboli may point to UBS's poor risk management as a form of defence. (Euromoney)

Only 13% of large companies say the 50p tax rate has dissuaded high earners from coming to the UK. (Financial Times)

The declining attractiveness of the UK financial services industry is one of the major reasons why Arbuthnot's private banking chief executive left for a role in Qatar. (CityWire)

Jefferies Group Inc. has hired at least seven UBS AG bankers in Hong Kong in the past two months. (BusinessWeek)

The world's biggest investment banks have greater staff turnover in commodities than in fixed-income and currencies because of tightening regulations on trading. (BusinessWeek)

Using independent raters, blind to condition, we found that almost all women were rated as reacting negatively ("bitchy") to an attractive female confederate when she was dressed in a sexually provocative manner. (NCBI)

Soon there may be people in what was Chez Gerard. (Telegraph)