"Generous to Men or Harsh to Women? Experimentally Unpacking Gender Bias in Lending"
Abstract: In low-income economies with limited financing options, loan officers act as gatekeepers to capital, and their bias can lead to capital misallocation and lower productivity. I study whether gender bias exists in small business lending and whether it stems from generosity toward men or harshness toward women. I present past loan applications with randomized applicant names to 720 loan officers in Egypt. I find that the same applications are approved 6.2% more with a male name. The gender gap is concentrated in high-risk loans—those that ex-post defaulted, had a history of late repayment, or had lower credit scores, suggesting generosity toward men rather than harshness toward women. I also test debiasing solutions. A nudge using Implicit Association Test feedback does not appear to be effective. By contrast, higher performance pay closes the gender gap by increasing screening time and reducing male approvals. I further test AI-assisted decision-making, but even with AI guidance, officers follow approval suggestions for high-risk loans with male names more. However, even with AI guidance, officers follow approval suggestions for high-risk loans with male names more. The results provide crucial insights for policymakers to unpack the nature of the bias and design effective interventions.
Best PhD Student Paper Award (🏆Louis Pasteur Prize), Advances with Field Experiments (AFE) Conference 2025
Presentations: AEA Annual Meeting 2026, Research Conference on Accelerating Growth for Women Entrepreneurs in Developing Economies (EBRD-WeFi-IDB-Imperial College London), Advances with Field Experiments (AFE) Conference 2025, UChicago Brown Bag, EGSC 20th Meeting, FMA Doctoral Student Consortium 2025.
Publications
"From Lawn Care to Home Care: Undocumented Immigration and Aging in Place", American Journal of Health Economics, 2025, 11.3: 454–486, with Domininkas Mockus
Abstract: Elderly Americans express a strong desire to stay out of nursing homes as they age (aging in place). Undocumented immigrants play an important role in supporting the elderly who live at home. This paper estimates the effect of changes in undocumented immigration on aging in place. Identification comes from a two-stage least squares research design using the staggered rollout of the Secure Communities (SC) program between 2008 and 2013 that increased the threat of deportation for undocumented immigrants. For communities with a high level of undocumented immigrants, the change in the undocumented labor supply caused by the SC program decreases aging in place by 0.42%. As a general trend, for every 10% decrease in the undocumented labor supply, the percentage of elderly natives aging in place decreases by 0.12%.
"Does Single-Sex Schooling Improve Students' Physical Fitness?: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in South Korea", Economics Letters, 2025, 112279, with Sanghee Mun
Abstract: Leveraging a randomized natural experiment, this study examines the impact of attending single-sex middle schools on students' physical fitness, measured through standardized nationwide physical tests. In South Korea, middle school students are assigned by lottery to either single-sex or coeducational schools within their designated school zones, providing an ideal setting to evaluate the effects of single-sex schooling. Using school-level data covering all middle schools, the study finds that boys attending single-sex schools achieve significantly higher pass rates on standardized physical fitness tests, suggesting improved physical fitness compared to their peers in coeducational schools. However, no similar improvement is observed for girls attending single-sex schools. These findings suggest that single-sex schooling has differential effects by gender, highlighting the need to further research to understand the mechanisms underlying these varied outcomes.
"Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard in Microenterprise Lending” with Jules Gazeaud, Adam Osman, Natalia Rigol, and Ben Roth (in the field)
"Unpacking the Gender Gap in Small Business Microfinance Loans: Demand and Supply Experiments in Ghana" (with Enock Kojo Ayesu and Simon Kamau)
"The Guardian Effect of Husbands on Wives' Job Seeking: Experimental Evidence from Egypt" (with Abdelrahman Nagy)