TY - BOOK ID - 138301623 TI - Gender Bias In SME Lending : Experimental Evidence From Turkey AU - Alibhai, Salman. AU - Donald, Aletheia. AU - Goldstein, Markus. AU - Oguz, Alper Ahmet. AU - Pankov, Alexander. AU - Strobbe, Francesco. PY - 2019 PB - Washington, D.C. : The World Bank, DB - UniCat KW - Access to Finance KW - Africa Gender Policy KW - Banking KW - Credit KW - Entrepreneurship KW - Female Entrepreneurs KW - Finance and Financial Sector Development KW - Financial Literacy KW - Gender KW - Gender and Development KW - Gender and Economic Policy KW - Gender Bias KW - Gender Gap KW - Gender Innovation Lab KW - Inequality KW - Law and Development KW - Law and Gender KW - Small and Medium Enterprises KW - SME Finance UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:138301623 AB - Gender disparities in small and medium-size enterprise lending exist around the world and impede the growth of millions of women-led firms. This paper examines a potential driver of these disparities: gender-biased loan officers. Officer bias is measured through a novel loan application experiment conducted with 77 loan officers in Turkish banks. The analysis finds that 35 percent of the loan officers are biased against female applicants, with women receiving loan amounts USD14,000 lower on average compared with men. Experience in the banking sector can attenuate this bias, with each year of experience reducing gender biased loan allocations by 6 percent. The results suggest that loan officers may use gender bias as a heuristic device given limited information and risk aversion. Helping newly recruited and lesser experienced loan officers to better discern loan application quality may thus improve financing of business loans to women and reduce gender gaps in entrepreneurship. ER -