Doctoral Dissertation Research: Discretion and Decision-making in Microlending

这个项目调查了在小额贷款机构，信贷员和申请者的归属特征如何影响通过名义上中立的标准化风险评估做法作出的信贷决定。在贫困程度较高的地方，小额贷款机构向非传统借款人发放小额贷款，使用的标准比普通银行更宽松。政策分析家和捐助组织将小额信贷描述为解决贫穷的包容性办法。然而，最初决定批准或拒绝哪些申请者的信贷员的作用往往被忽视。这项研究考察了归因特征对这一决策的影响，以及由此对谁获得贷款和以什么期限获得贷款的潜在后果。本项目的研究问题是：(1)信贷员如何确定申请者的信誉，以及他们对归因性特征的价值如何影响这种评估？(2)风险评估的标准化如何影响信贷员的自由裁量权和信贷分配过程？这些问题结合了在重大体制变革过程中收集的定性和定量数据，包括行政数据、访谈、人种学观察和书面文本。这些数据的收集是通过访问小额信贷提供者实现的。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates how, at microlenders, an ascriptive characteristic of loan officers and applicants may affect credit decisions that are made through nominally neutral, standardized risk assessment practices. In places with high poverty levels, microlenders make small loans to nontraditional borrowers using more forgiving criteria than regular banks. Policy analysts and donor organizations have portrayed microcredit as an inclusive solution to poverty. The role of loan officers, however, who decide which applicants are approved or rejected in the first place, often is overlooked. This study examines the effect of an ascriptive characteristic on this decision and thus its potentially consequential effects on who gets loans and on what terms.Research questions for this project are: (1) How do loan officers determine creditworthiness among applicants, and how is this evaluation affected by their values on an ascriptive characteristic? (2) How does the standardization of risk assessment affect the exercise of loan officers’ discretion and the process of credit allocation? These questions are addressed with a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collected over the course of a major institutional transformation, including administrative data, interviews, ethnographic observations, and written texts. Collection of these data is made possible through access to a microcredit provider.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.