The Review of Economics and Statistics 2026
Gender Discrimination in Access to Capital: A Field Experiment in Ethiopia
Abstract
We test whether loan officers discriminate against female business owners in capital decisions affecting real businesses in an Ethiopian business plan competition. Randomizing owner gender across 3,696 evaluations, by 84 loan officers, for 916 businesses, we find no effect on prize scores or consideration for a loan. Incentivized beliefs about future performance did not differ by gender, ruling out statistical and taste-based discrimination. Machine learning predictions of future business performance show that loan officers beliefs were accurate. Gender does not meaningfully improve predictions, implying no trade-off between gender equity and effective capital allocation.
- DOI
- 10.1162/rest.a.1867
- Pages
- 1-45
- Language
- en
- Sources
- crossref