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Review of Finance Vol. 17 No. 4 2013

Gender and Banking: Are Women Better Loan Officers?

Thorsten Beck; Patrick Behr; Andre Guettler

1 CentER, Department of Economics and European Banking Center, Tilburg University and CEPR, 2Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration (EBAPE), Getulio Vargas Foundation and 3Department of Finance, Accounting, and Real Estate, EBS Business School

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Abstract

Using a unique data set for a commercial bank in Albania, we analyze gender differences in loan officers’ performance. Loans screened and monitored by female loan officers have a lower likelihood to turn problematic than loans handled by male loan officers. This effect cannot be explained by borrower or loan officer selection or differences in screening, work load, and experience. However, while the performance gap always exists for female borrowers, female loan officers only gain a performance advantage with male borrowers with experience and do not have an advantage with borrowers that are legal entities. We therefore interpret this as suggestive evidence for female loan officers’ better capacity to build trust relationships with borrowers.

DOI
10.1093/rof/rfs028
Volume
17
Issue
4
Pages
1279-1321
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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