"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 biases can distort capital allocation. I study gender bias in small business lending in Egypt by presenting 720 loan officers with past loan applications where I randomized applicant names. The same application is approved 6.2% more often if it has a male name, with the gap concentrated in low-quality loans that later defaulted, had late repayment history, or low credit scores. This shows that the bias manifests as generosity toward men rather than harshness toward women. Separating out bias in this way is critical to understanding its implications and how best to combat it. I test different strategies to decrease bias. Implicit Association Test feedback does not appear effective, while performance pay leads loan officers to increase screening effort and eliminates the bias. Combining both treatments also closes the gap without increasing screening effort. However, when officers receive AI assistance, they are more likely to follow approval suggestions for low-quality loans with male names.
Best PhD Student Paper Award (🏆Louis Pasteur Prize), Advances with Field Experiments (AFE) Conference 2025 (UChicago)
Presentations (scheduled *): AEA Annual Meeting 2026*, University of Chicago experimental economics working group, Accelerating Growth for Women Entrepreneurs in Developing Economies conference (EBRD, We-Fi, IDB, IDB Invest, Imperial College London), PEDL 15th year Anniversary Conference (Oxford, invited), Advances with Field Experiments Conference 2025, EGSC 20th Meeting, FMA Doctoral Student Consortium 2025, KAEA Job Market Conference
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 ; research proposal)
"Unpacking the Gender Gap in Small Business Microfinance Loans: Demand and Supply Experiments in Ghana" (with Enock Kojo Ayesu and Simon Kamau)
Presentations: Young Scholars Matchmaking Workshop 2025 (PEDL-CEPR)
"The Guardian Effect of Husbands on Wives' Job Seeking: Experimental Evidence from Egypt" (with Abdelrahman Nagy)