[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/9449.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Role of Gender in Agent Banking : Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Author

Listed:
  • Chamboko,Richard
  • Cull,Robert J.
  • Gine,Xavier
  • Heitmann,Soren
  • Reitzug,Fabian
  • Van Der Westhuizen,Morne
Abstract
This paper uses a unique data set with 1.1 million customer transactions from a microfinanceinstitution in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2017 to 2018. The paper provides evidence of assortative gendermatching in agent banking transactions, as clients prefer to transact with agents of their own gender. Female clientsshow a robust preference for female agents even when they are less available, particularly when making high-valuetransactions and when they have higher account balances. The underrepresentation of female agents may contribute to thepersistent gender gap in financial access and usage.

Suggested Citation

  • Chamboko,Richard & Cull,Robert J. & Gine,Xavier & Heitmann,Soren & Reitzug,Fabian & Van Der Westhuizen,Morne, 2020. "The Role of Gender in Agent Banking : Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9449, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9449
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/329591603311397199/pdf/The-Role-of-Gender-in-Agent-Banking-Evidence-from-the-Democratic-Republic-of-Congo.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thorsten Beck & Patrick Behr & Andre Guettler, 2013. "Gender and Banking: Are Women Better Loan Officers?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1279-1321.
    2. Greig, Fiona & Bohnet, Iris, 2009. "Exploring gendered behavior in the field with experiments: Why public goods are provided by women in a Nairobi slum," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 1-9, May.
    3. Barr, Abigail & Dekker, Marleen & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2012. "Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 2063-2077.
    4. John Gutin, 2015. "Breaking Free of the Branch," World Bank Publications - Reports 23490, The World Bank Group.
    5. Valentina Hartarska & Denis Nadolnyak & Roy Mersland, 2014. "Are Women Better Bankers to the Poor? Evidence from Rural Microfinance Institutions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1291-1306.
    6. Robert Cull & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Jonathan Morduch, 2009. "Microfinance Meets the Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 167-192, Winter.
    7. Cull, Robert & Gine, Xavier & Harten, Sven & Heitmann, Soren & Rusu, Anca Bogdana, 2018. "Agent banking in a highly under-developed financial sector: Evidence from Democratic Republic of Congo," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 54-74.
    8. D'Espallier, Bert & Guérin, Isabelle & Mersland, Roy, 2011. "Women and Repayment in Microfinance: A Global Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 758-772, May.
    9. Bert D'espallier & Isabelle Guerin & Roy Mersland, 2013. "Focus on Women in Microfinance Institutions," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 589-608, May.
    10. World Bank, 2019. "The Little Data Book on Gender 2019," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 31689.
    11. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    12. Huang, Jiekun & Kisgen, Darren J., 2013. "Gender and corporate finance: Are male executives overconfident relative to female executives?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 822-839.
    13. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    14. Sunden, Annika E & Surette, Brian J, 1998. "Gender Differences in the Allocation of Assets in Retirement Savings Plans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 207-211, May.
    15. Eckel, Catherine C. & Wilson, Rick K., 2004. "Is trust a risky decision?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 447-465, December.
    16. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer (ed.), 2007. "Economics and Psychology: A Promising New Cross-Disciplinary Field," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262062631, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johnen, Constantin & Parlasca, Martin & Mußhoff, Oliver, 2023. "Mobile money adoption in Kenya: The role of mobile money agents," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Ölkers, Tim & Liu, Shuang & Mußhoff, Oliver, 2023. "A typology of Malian farmers and their credit repayment performance - An unsupervised machine learning approach," 97th Annual Conference, March 27-29, 2023, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 334547, Agricultural Economics Society - AES.
    3. Shen, Kailing, 2021. "Gender Discrimination," IZA Discussion Papers 14897, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Richard Chamboko, 2022. "On the Role of Gender and Age in the Use of Digital Financial Services in Zimbabwe," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-15, September.
    5. Julien, Jacques C. & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E. & Rada, Nicholas E., 2023. "Gender and agricultural Productivity: Econometric evidence from Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    6. Gupta, Sanal & Singh, Puran, 2023. "What drives activity of banking agents? Evidence from Rural India," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Xiao & Huang, Bihong & Ye, Dezhu, 2019. "The Gender Gap in Peer-to-Peer Lending: Evidence from the People’s Republic of China," ADBI Working Papers 977, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    2. Chen, Xiao & Huang, Bihong & Ye, Dezhu, 2020. "Gender gap in peer-to-peer lending: Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. Skała, Dorota & Weill, Laurent, 2018. "Does CEO gender matter for bank risk?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 64-74.
    4. Sila, Vathunyoo & Gonzalez, Angelica & Hagendorff, Jens, 2016. "Women on board: Does boardroom gender diversity affect firm risk?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 26-53.
    5. Fang,Sheng & Goh,Chorching & Roberts,Mark & Xu,L. Colin & Zeufack,Albert G., 2020. "Female Business Leaders, Business and Cultural Environment, and Productivity around the World," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9275, The World Bank.
    6. Berger, Allen N. & Kick, Thomas & Schaeck, Klaus, 2014. "Executive board composition and bank risk taking," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 48-65.
    7. Valentina Hartarska & Denis Nadolnyak & Roy Mersland, 2014. "Are Women Better Bankers to the Poor? Evidence from Rural Microfinance Institutions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1291-1306.
    8. Levi, Maurice & Li, Kai & Zhang, Feng, 2014. "Director gender and mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 185-200.
    9. Ina Ganguli & Ricardo Hausmann & Martina Viarengo, 2017. "Career dynamics and gender gaps among employees in the microfinance sector," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-117, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Li, Yiwei & Zeng, Yeqin, 2019. "The impact of top executive gender on asset prices: Evidence from stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 528-550.
    11. Rigolini, Alessandra & Gabaldon, Patricia & Le Bruyn Goldeng, Eskil, 2021. "CEO succession with gender change in troubled companies: The effect of a new woman CEO on firm risk and firm risk perceived," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(1).
    12. Faccio, Mara & Marchica, Maria-Teresa & Mura, Roberto, 2016. "CEO gender, corporate risk-taking, and the efficiency of capital allocation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 193-209.
    13. Doan, Trang & Iskandar-Datta, Mai, 2020. "Are female top executives more risk-averse or more ethical? Evidence from corporate cash holdings policy," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 161-176.
    14. Dowling, Michael & Aribi, Zakaria Ali, 2013. "Female directors and UK company acquisitiveness," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 79-86.
    15. Ajay Palvia & Emilia Vähämaa & Sami Vähämaa, 2015. "Are Female CEOs and Chairwomen More Conservative and Risk Averse? Evidence from the Banking Industry During the Financial Crisis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 577-594, October.
    16. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2014_016 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Reinert, Regina M. & Weigert, Florian & Winnefeld, Christoph H., 2015. "Does Female Management Influence Firm Performance? Evidence from Luxembourg Banks," Working Papers on Finance 1501, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    18. Ina Ganguli & Ricardo Hausmann & Martina Viarengo, 2017. "Career dynamics and gender gaps among employees in the microfinance sector," WIDER Working Paper Series 117, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Agarwal, Sumit & Green, Richard & Rosenblatt, Eric & Yao, Vincent W. & Zhang, Jian, 2018. "Gender difference and intra-household economic power in mortgage signing order," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 86-100.
    20. Hubert Tchakoute Tchuigoua, 2023. "Loan officer gender and loan repayment performance. Evidence from greenfield microfinance institutions in Cameroon1," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(2), pages 519-548, June.
    21. Lai Van Vo & Hazel Thu‐Hien Nguyen & Huong Thi Thu Le, 2021. "Do female CEOs make a difference in firm operations? Evidence from Vietnam," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1489-1516, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender and Development; Financial Sector Policy; Banks & Banking Reform; Inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G29 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9449. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.