We examine whether discrimination affects customers’ willingness to pay their suppliers. Using a dataset of detailed trade credit networks, we find that when facing a macroeconomic shock, customers delay payments to their suppliers with female or black trade credit officers at a 10%–20% higher rate relative to their payments to non-minorities. These results hold after controlling for a host of economic differences between minority groups and non-minority groups. In particular, we exploit the complexity of the supply chain network – wherein suppliers transact with multiple customers in each month and customers transact with multiple suppliers in each month – to estimate changes in payment behavior during periods of financial hardship. Results indicate that the largest increases in payment delays are between customers that are classified as having racial or gender biases and suppliers that have minority lead credit officers. The results suggest that biased beliefs and preferences play a critical role in trade credit.

中文翻译：

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支付链中的歧视


我们研究歧视是否会影响客户向供应商付款的意愿。使用详细的贸易信贷网络数据集，我们发现，当面临宏观经济冲击时，客户延迟向女性或黑人贸易信贷官员的供应商付款的比率比向非少数族裔付款的比率高出 10%–20%。在控制了少数群体和非少数群体之间的一系列经济差异后，这些结果仍然成立。特别是，我们利用供应链网络的复杂性（其中供应商每个月与多个客户进行交易，客户每个月与多个供应商进行交易）来估计财务困难期间支付行为的变化。结果表明，付款延迟增幅最大的是被归类为具有种族或性别偏见的客户与拥有少数族裔首席信贷官员的供应商之间。结果表明，有偏见的信念和偏好在贸易信贷中发挥着关键作用。