Measuring Bias in Consumer Lending
利用英国一家高成本贷款机构的行政数据，通过新委托代理模型检验贷款审查员因短期激励对流动性不足的移民和老年申请人产生偏见，发现长期利润衡量标准下存在显著偏见，而短期衡量标准下则没有。
Abstract This article tests for bias in consumer lending using administrative data from a high-cost lender in the U.K. We motivate our analysis using a new principal-agent model of bias where loan examiners are incentivized to maximize a short-term outcome, not long-term profits, leading to bias against illiquid applicants at the margin of loan decisions. We identify the profitability of marginal applicants using the quasi-random assignment of loan examiners, finding significant bias against immigrant and older applicants when using the firm’s preferred measure of long-run profits but not when using the short-run measure used to evaluate examiner performance. In this case, market incentives based on characteristics that vary across groups lead to inefficient group-based bias.