Discriminatory Lending: Evidence from Bankers in the Lab

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brock, J. Michelle; De Haas, Ralph
• 署名单位: Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; European Bank of Reconstructon & Development; KU Leuven
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20210180
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 31-68
• 关键词: implicit association test; confidence-intervals; field experiment; GENDER; credit; stereotypes; women; sex; inference; matter

摘要

We implement a lab-in-the-field experiment with 334 Turkish loan officers to document gender discrimination in small business lend-ing and unpack mechanisms. Officers review multiple real-life loan applications in which we randomize applicant gender. While uncon-ditional approval rates are the same, officers are 26 percent more likely to require a guarantor when we present the same application as coming from a female instead of a male entrepreneur. A causal forest algorithm to estimate heterogeneous treatment effects reveals that discrimination is concentrated among young, inexperienced, and gender-biased officers. Discrimination mainly affects female loan applicants in male-dominated industries, indicating how finan-cial frictions can perpetuate entrepreneurial gender segregation across sectors. (JEL C93, G21, G32, J16, L25, L26, O16)