### Ethnical Discrimination in Europe: Field Evidence from the Finance Industry Matthias Stefan, Felix Holzmeister, Alexander Müllauer, and Michael Kirchler --- #### Abstract: The integration of ethnical minorities has been a hotly debated topic in the political, societal, and economic debate. Persistent discrimination of ethnical minorities can hinder successful integration. Unequal access to investment and financing opportunities can cause social and economic disparities due to inferior economic prospects. We conducted a field experiment on ethnical discrimination in the finance sector with 1,218 banks in seven European countries. We contacted banks via e-mail, either with domestic or Arabic sounding names, asking for contact details only. We find pronounced discrimination in terms of a substantially lower response rate to e-mails from Arabic senders. Remarkably, the observed discrimination effect is robust across countries, for loan- and investment-related requests, and across rural and urban locations of banks. ---