Search Results
Working Paper
On SBA-guaranteed lending and economic growth
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.
Journal Article
Are SBA loan guarantees desirable?
Over the last 10 years, the Small Business Administration has been responsible for well over $100 billion in small business credit extensions, more than any single private lender. This Commentary explores the motivations for such a large investment of taxpayer dollars.
Working Paper
Corporate governance structure and mergers
Few transactions have the potential to generate revelations about the market value of corporate assets and liabilities as mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Corporate governance and control mechanisms such as independent directors, independent blockholders, and managerial share ownership are usually important predictors of the size and distribution of the incremental wealth generated by M&A transactions. The authors add to this literature by investigating these relationships using a sample of banking organization M&A transactions over the period 1990-2004. Unlike research on nonfinancial firms, ...
Working Paper
Inter-industry contagion and the competitive effects of financial distress announcements: evidence from commercial banks and life insurance companies
Contagion usually refers to the spillover of the effects of shocks from one or more firms to other firms. Most studies of contagion limit their analysis to how shock affect firms in the same industry, or "intra-industry" contagion. The purpose of this paper is to explore and document the likely magnitude of "inter-industry" contagion. In their comprehensive study of intra-industry contagion using many individual industries Lang and Stulz (1992) argue that if contagion is not simply an informational effect it will impose a social cost on our economic system. If this is true for ...
Working Paper
Public policy in support of small business: the American experience
Information problems in small enterprise credit markets can result in a market equilibrium characterized by credit rationing. These information problems are potentially more severe during sharp economic downturns such as the recent Great Recession. Government interventions to alleviate credit constraints on small firms need to be designed to correct the specific market failure resulting in socially suboptimal credit flows. We argue that Small Business Administration loan guarantees are a potentially appropriate intervention and provide a review of empirical research that supports our ...
Working Paper
Small-firm credit markets, SBA-guaranteed lending, and economic performance in low-income areas
SBA guaranteed-lending programs are one of many government-sponsored market interventions aimed at promoting small business. The rationale for providing SBA loan guarantees is often based on the argument that they reduce credit rationing in low-income markets for small business loans. In this paper we empirically test whether SBA-guaranteed lending has a greater impact on economic performance in low-income markets. Using local labor market employment rates as our measure of economic> performance, we find evidence consistent with this proposition. In particular, we find a positive and ...
Working Paper
When target CEOs contract with acquirers: evidence from bank mergers and acquisitions
This paper investigates the impact of the target chief executive officer?s (CEO) postmerger position on the purchase premium and target shareholders? abnormal returns around the announcement of the deal in a sample of bank mergers during the period 1990?2004. We find evidence that the target shareholders? returns are negatively related to the postmerger position of their CEO. However, these lower returns are not matched by higher returns to the acquirer?s shareholders, suggesting little or no wealth transfers. Additionally, our evidence suggests that the target CEO becoming a senior officer ...
Discussion Paper
Does government intervention in the small-firm credit market help economic performance?
The guaranteed lending programs of the Small Business Administration (SBA) are large and growing rapidly. The SBAs fiscal year 2008 performance budget calls for $25 billion in guaranteed loans for small businessesa new record for the agency. Some critics of SBA programs suggest they do not help small businesses or overall economic performance. Other critics suggest that these programs unfairly benefit the financial institutions that participate in SBAs guaranteed lending programs. While very little serious empirical evidence exists on whether the net economic impact of the SBAs guaranteed ...