A Flow Chart Approach to Analyzing the Ethics of Insider Trading
13 Pages Posted: 20 Sep 2007
Date Written: September 2007
Abstract
Hundreds of articles have been written about various aspects of insider trading. It is one of those topics that is truly interdisciplinary, touching on finance, economics, law, business ethics and perhaps a few other disciplines. Yet with all this research there is still no consensus about when insider trading is ethical and when it is not. Part of the problem is because there is more than one ethical system that could be applied to the analysis. Another problem is that some authors have already decided what the answer should be, so they go about trying to justify their pre-conceived position without paying adequate attention to opposing views. This paper reviews the main ethical views on insider trading and uses a flow chart approach to determine when insider trading is ethical and when it is not.
Keywords: insider trading, ethics, utilitarian, rights
JEL Classification: A13, D6, D82, G14, G38, K22, M4
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation