Search

Enacted March 27, 2020, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was the most ambitious and creative fiscal policy response to the pandemic recession in the United States. PPP offers forgivable loans-essentially grants-to businesses with 500 or fewer employees that meet certain requirements. In this paper, we present evidence that PPP has substantially increased the employment, financial health, and survival of small businesses, using data from Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. We use event studies and standard difference-in-differences models to estimate the effect of a small business applying for larger PPP loans and of a small business being eligible for PPP based on size. While our findings are informative, we believe it is too early to issue conclusive judgment on PPP's success. We offer lessons for the future from the PPP experience thus far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Competitividade e Sustentabilidade - ComSus is the property of Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Parana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the relationship between the U.S. Small Business Administration's (SBA) lending programs and state-level employment from the early 1990s to 2013 using quarterly panel data for U.S. states with fixed effects. The results show a positive statistical relationship between the growth in SBA lending per capita and the change in the state's civilian employment rates. Despite these statistically significant relationships, the coefficient sizes are small. An analysis of high and low personal income states shows no meaningful differences in the relationship between SBA lending and employment across these groups. These findings support the idea that SBA lending programs may help with the public policy goal of assisting small businesses and may contribute to the finance–growth nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature questions the relative advantage of community banks vs. non-community banks in small business funding. Using the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's definition of a community bank, the study re-examines the role of community banks in providing funding to small businesses using the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) small business lending data over the period 2003 to 2016. The empirical results indicate that community banks are still providing 30 percent more small business funding than non-community banks, especially after the Great Recession. This role is even more important in those counties in non-metropolitan areas. In addition, the results indicate that in counties where community banks do not have offices, they provide 48 percent fewer loans compared to non-community banks in counties where they do not have offices, which suggests community banks still use physical offices to maintain their relationship lending advantage. Clearly, from a public policy standpoint, the results support the view that community banks are important because they continue to provide valuable services to small business firms throughout the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use traditional and nontraditional data to measure the collapse and partial recovery of the US labor market from March to early July, contrast this downturn to previous recessions, and provide preliminary evidence on the effects of the policy response. For hourly workers at both small and large businesses, nearly all of the decline in employment occurred between March 14 and 28. It was driven by low-wage services, particularly the retail and leisure and hospitality sectors. A large share of the job losses in small businesses reflected firms that closed entirely, though many subsequently reopened. Firms that were already unhealthy were more likely to close and less likely to reopen, and disadvantaged workers were more likely to be laid off and less likely to return. Most laid-off workers expected to be recalled, and this was predictive of rehiring. Shelter-in-place orders drove only a small share of job losses. Last, states that received more small business loans from the Paycheck Protection Program and states with more generous unemployment insurance benefits had milder declines and faster recoveries. We find no evidence that high unemployment insurance replacement rates drove job losses or slowed rehiring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to support entrepreneurs, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) offers loans to small firms. The SBA claims that it not only offers capital to small firms, but that it offers services and support to help them build capabilities. This study investigates whether the empirical evidence demonstrates an improvement in four-year survival rates for SBA-aided firms over the general population of small firms, and if there is any correlation between loan size and survival rates. Additionally, the study examines if women and minority-owned SBA-aided small firms (who are a traditionally under-represented demographic) improve their four-year survival rate. The results suggest that small firms that receive SBA loans do improve the four-year survival rate over the general population of small firms. However, loan size was not correlated with higher survival rates. The results also suggest that women-owned small firms experience a similar increase in survival rate, while minority-owned small firms do not receive a statistically significant increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses public purpose finance (PPF), particularly the role of the U.S. federal government as lenders. Also cited are the PPFs used by the government to provide loans to private borrowers in areas like education, small business, agriculture, and education, as well as the importance of PPF in macroeconomics and racial inequality resolution.

Exploiting the heterogeneity in legal constraints on local bank employees' mobility, I show that access to local information influences banks' modes of expansion. As restrictions on interbank labor mobility are relaxed, banks entering a new market establish branches directly instead of acquiring incumbent branches, resulting in a shift of composition of entrants. The treatment effect is strengthened when information asymmetries between local banks and entrants are severe. Furthermore, I find a surge in the volume and a reduction in the rates of local small business loans originated by surrounding incumbent banks after the entry of outside banks, especially after entrants establish new branches. This paper was accepted by Lauren Cohen, finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test whether rural versus urban location, and the amount of social capital present in those locations, influence the performance of Small Business Administration (SBA) 7(a) loans originated between 1984 and 2012. On average, we find that rural loans are about 11% less likely to default than urban loans, and that a standard deviation increase in social capital reduces default by about 5%. Surprisingly, these two effects are largely independent of each other, even though social capital is substantially higher in rural places than in urban places. Our findings advance the small business lending literature and offer insights for a more efficient allocation of SBA funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of event returns surrounding bank mergers show that banks gain value in megamergers and additional value when they absorb in-market competitors. A portion of these gains has been traced to the increased bargaining power of banks vis-à-vis regulators and other competitors. We demonstrate that increased bargaining power of megabanks adversely affects loan customers of the acquired institution. Wealth losses are greater when loan customers are credit-constrained, the loan customer is smaller, or the acquisition is an in-market deal. These findings reinforce complaints that the ongoing consolidation in banking has unfavorably affected the availability of credit for smaller firms and especially capital-constrainedfirms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we report that, although medium-maturity loans originated under the SBA 7(a) loan guarantee program are targeted to small firms that fail to obtain credit through conventional channels, the default experience is comparable to that of a large percentage of loans held by larger commercial banks. We establish that the default behavior of these loans is time sensitive--as a loan seasons, the likelihood of default increases initially, peaks in the second year, and declines thereafter. Using a discrete-time hazard framework, we show that the likelihood of default is conditional on borrower, lender, and loan characteristics, and changes in economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effect on loan conditions of geographical distance between firms, the lending bank, and all other banks in the vicinity. For our study, we employ detailed contract information from more than 15,000 bank loans to small firms comprising the entire loan portfolio of a large Belgian bank. We report the first comprehensive evidence on the occurrence of spatial price discrimination in bank lending. Loan rates decrease with the distance between the firm and the lending bank and increase with the distance between the firm and competing banks. Transportation costs cause the spatial price discrimination we observe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The informational opacity of small businesses makes them an interesting area for the study of banks' lending practices and procedures. We use data from a survey of small businesses to analyze the micro level differences in the loan approval processes of large and small banks. We provide evidence that large banks ($1 billion or more in assets) employ standard criteria obtained from financial statements in the loan decision process, whereas small banks rely to a greater extent on information about the character of the borrower. These cookie-cutter and character approaches are compatible with the incentives and environments facing large and small banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distance between small firms and their lenders is increasing, and they are communicating in more impersonal ways. After documenting these systematic changes, we demonstrate they do not arise from small firms locating differently, consolidation in the banking industry, or biases in the sample. Instead, improvements in lender productivity appear to explain our findings. We also find distant firms no longer have to be the highest quality credits, indicating they have greater access to credit. The evidence indicates there has been substantial development of the financial sector, even in areas such as small business lending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how well different organizational structures perform in terms of generating information about investment projects and allocating capital to these projects. A decentralized approach—with small, single–manager firms—is most likely to be attractive when information about projects is “soft” and cannot be credibly transmitted. In contrast, large hierarchies perform better when information can be costlessly “hardened” and passed along inside the firm. The model can be used to think about the consequences of consolidation in the banking industry, particularly the documented tendency for mergers to lead to declines in small–business lending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]