Data and code for: Discriminatory Lending-Evidence from Bankers in the Lab

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) J. Michelle Brock, EBRD; Ralph De Haas, EBRD

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Brock_DeHaas_ReplicationFiles			03/21/2022 06:48:AM

Project Citation:

Brock, J. Michelle, and De Haas, Ralph. Data and code for: Discriminatory Lending-Evidence from Bankers in the Lab. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2023. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-03-09. https://doi.org/10.3886/E157121V1

Project Description

Summary: We implement a lab-in-the-field experiment with 334 Turkish loan officers to document gender discrimination in small business lending and to unpack the mechanisms at play. Each officer reviews multiple real-life loan applications in which we randomize the applicant's gender. While unconditional approval rates are the same for male and female applicants, loan 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 this discrimination is strongly concentrated among young, inexperienced, and gender-biased loan officers. Discrimination mainly affects female loan applicants in male-dominated industries, indicating how financial frictions can perpetuate entrepreneurial gender segregation across sectors.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Gender bias; bank credit; lab-in-the-field

JEL Classification:
      D81 Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
      D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
      G21 Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
      G41 Behavioral Finance: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets
      L26 Entrepreneurship

Geographic Coverage: Turkey

Time Period(s): 1/1/2013 – 1/1/2017

Collection Date(s): 10/1/2016 – 10/1/2017 (October 2016-October 2017 is when the experimental sessions took place)

Universe: Decisions by loan officers of a large bank in Turkey.

Data Type(s): experimental data; survey data

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Published Versions

V1 [2023-03-09]

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