Discrimination against girls is well-documented, especially in Asia. We show that women try to level the playing field for their daughters by taking on debt. But wealth asymmetry between mothers and fathers perpetuates gender inequality across generations.

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

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...