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Abstract
This study analyzes the courts’ denial of women farmers’ motion for class-action certification
of their lawsuits alleging gender discrimination in Farm Service Agency (FSA)
lending decisions. The plaintiffs’ claim of “commonality” of circumstances in women
farmers’ dealings with FSA is tested using a four-year sampling of Georgia FSA loan
applications. The econometric framework has been developed after accounting for the
separability of loan approval and amount decisions, as well as endogeneity issues through
instrumental variable estimation. This study’s results do not produce overwhelming evidence
of gender bias in FSA loan approval decisions and in favor of the “commonality”
argument among Georgia FSA farm loan applicants.