This paper estimates the impact of loan officers' subjectivity on microcredit granting by exploiting an exceptionally detailed database from a Brazilian microfinance institution. Loan officers collect field data, meet with applicants, and make recommendations to the credit committee that in turn...

Microfinance institutions serve a majority of female borrowers. But do men and women benefit from same credit conditions? This paper investigates this issue by presenting an original model and testing its predictions on an exceptional database including 34,000 loan applications from a Brazilian...

The unequal treatment of children is not gender neutral from the parent side. Our results show that women try to compensate through debt for the unbalanced situation faced by their daughters compared to their sons. However, the lack of symmetry between mothers' and fathers' financial situations...

Poor women have complex financial lives. They borrow from a variety of sources. So far, however, research has focussed only on formal borrowing as a source of women’s empowerment. This study examines whether type of borrowing matters to women. We differentiate between ‘easy loans’ – that...

Women entrepreneurs are known not only to reimburse loans swifter than men, but also to receive smaller loans. However, on average women have smaller-scope business projects and are poorer than men. A deeper investigation is thus required in order to assess the existence of gender discrimination...

Poor women borrow from multiple sources. This study examines whether the source of debt matters for women’s role in household financial decisions. Drawing on a household survey from rural Tamil Nadu, we categorise women’s loans along the lines of accessibility and formality into ‘planned...

The unequal treatment of children is not gender neutral from the parent side. Our results show that women try to compensate through debt for the unbalanced situation faced by their daughters compared to their sons. However, the lack of symmetry between mothers' and fathers' financial situations...

In microcredit institutions, credit officers play a prominent role in loan granting decisions. Indeed, they collect field data, meet with the applicants, and provide personal recommendations to the credit committee that takes the final decisions (loan approval/denial, and loan size). This paper...

Women entrepreneurs are known not only to reimburse loans swifter than men, but also to receive smaller loans. However, on average women have smaller-scope business projects and are poorer than men. A deeper investigation is thus required in order to assess the existence of gender discrimination...