-time borrowers to loan officers of a large Albanian lender, we test for own-gender bias in the loan officer-borrower match. We find … is independent of loan officer gender. Ending up with an opposite-sex loan officer also affects demand for credit, with …

to show that own-gender preferences affect both credit supply and demand. Borrowers matched to officers of the opposite … gender are less likely to return for a second loan. The effect is larger when officers have little prior exposure to … borrowers of the other gender and when they have more discretion to act on their gender beliefs, as proxied by financial market …

We analyze gender differences associated with loan officer performance. Using a unique data set for a commercial bank … monitoring, as loan officers of different gender do not seem to screen borrowers differently based on observable borrower … characteristics. This suggests that gender indeed matters in banking. …