Sba-Loan Guarantees and Local Economic Growth

Abstract

Increasingly policymakers are looking to the small business sector as a potential engine of economic growth. Policies to promote small businesses include tax relief, direct subsidies, and indirect subsidies through government lending programs. Encouraging lending to small business is the primary policy objective of the Small Business Administration (SBA) loan-guarantee program. Using a panel data set of SBA-guaranteed loans we assess whether SBA-guaranteed lending has an observable impact on local and regional economic performance.

Keywords: small business, economic growth, loan guarantees, credit rationing, relationship lending

JEL Classification: G38, H81, O16