Divorce and Credit

Shusen Qi, Shu Chen, Steven Ongena and Jiaxing You
Additional contact information
Shusen Qi: Xiamen University - School of Management
Shu Chen: Fujian Business University
Jiaxing You: Xiamen University

No 20-116, Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series from Swiss Finance Institute

Abstract: Does failure in a marriage foretell failure to repay credit? Analyzing the loan portfolio of a representative bank, we find no significant differences in the probability of default between divorcees and others, but we do find evidence for taste-based discrimination against divorcees. Compared to their peers, divorcees pay 8.7 basis points more in interest. This discrimination against divorcees is mainly effectuated in localities where traditional culture is more dominant and banking competition is limited, and by loan officers who are male, are older, and have been longer on the job. These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers to reduce discrimination.

Keywords: discrimination; divorced borrower; loan officer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 G51 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3752423 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp20116

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series from Swiss Finance Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ridima Mittal ().