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Journal Article
How Well Did PPP Loans Reach Low- and Moderate-Income Communities?
We investigate the degree to which Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans reached small businesses in low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities. We use PPP loan data from the Small Business Administration that we geocode and link to census tracts. We assess the program’s reach in a few ways and focus on the number of loans, rather than the amount of funds, that went to different areas in order to capture the program’s impact on businesses with fewer than 50 employees—the vast majority of small businesses. We find evidence that the program did have a broad reach within LMI communities, ...
Discussion Paper
Where Have the Paycheck Protection Loans Gone So Far?
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a central piece of the CARES Act. In the program’s first round, $349 billion in forgivable government-guaranteed loans were extended to small businesses to cover costs related to payroll and utilities, as well as mortgage and rent payments. The program opened for applications on April 3 and was oversubscribed by April 16. Because of its popularity, lawmakers passed a new bill replenishing the fund with another $310 billion and the Small Business Administration (SBA) started approving loans again on April 27. With a new round of PPP lending underway, ...
Journal Article
Was the Paycheck Protection Program Effective?
The Paycheck Protection Program offered timely COVID-19 relief, but a new study found that most of its funds failed to reach the workers it was meant to help.
Journal Article
The Great Resignation and the Paycheck Protection Program
A prominent feature of the US labor markets during the recovery from the COVID-19 recession was a high level of worker separations in the form of quits. This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as the Great Resignation, cannot be fully explained by the strength of the recovery. We show that firms that employ fewer than 250 individuals played a disproportionately larger role in generating excess quits during this episode. We further argue that the availability of Paycheck Protection Program funds might have prevented some “usual” reallocation from happening early on and thus subsequently ...
Journal Article
Fiscal Relief during the COVID-19 Pandemic
In response to the sharp economic downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed unprecedented policy relief measures to support households, businesses, and the broader economy. Compared with previous fiscal stimulus responses, these relief programs have been unmatched in size and scope, speed of response, and novelty of design.Huixin Bi and Chaitri Gulati review recent empirical research on three fiscal relief programs—stimulus checks, augmented unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—to understand their effects on the broader economy as ...
Working Paper
Is a Friend in Need a Friend Indeed? How Relationship Borrowers Fare during the COVID-19 Crisis
We analyze loan contract terms, investigating whether relationship borrowers fare better or worse than others in times of need, using the COVID-19 crisis as a quasi-natural experiment. COVID-19 is superior to prior crises for such analysis because its public health and government restrictions shocks directly harm borrowers, rather than banks. Our dataset includes Y-14Q, covering syndicated and non syndicated loans and small and large firms, unlike some other datasets. We find the dark side of relationships dominates across four relationship measures, 14 COVID-19 shocks, and PPP participation. ...
Journal Article
Lessons Learned from Small Business Lending During COVID-19: A Case Study of the California Rebuilding Fund
As the COVID-19 pandemic forced California businesses to shut down in March 2020, the fate of small businesses, which often had fewer reserves to draw upon when trying to survive the shutdowns, became particularly concerning. Federal aid measures, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), brought relief to many business owners, but their deployment also confirmed what many small business advocates feared: business owners in the most vulnerable communities and underrepresented business owners often struggled to obtain assistance. At the same time, small business lending capital dried ...
Discussion Paper
Did Changes to the Paycheck Protection Program Improve Access for Underserved Firms?
Prior research has shown that many small and minority-owned businesses failed to receive Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans in 2020. To increase program uptake to underserved firms, several changes were made to the PPP in 2021. Using data from the Federal Reserve Banks’ 2021 Small Business Credit Survey, we argue that these changes were effective in improving program access for nonemployer firms (that is, businesses with no employees other than the owner(s)). The changes may also have encouraged more applications from minority-owned firms, but they do not appear to have reduced ...
Working Paper
Ten Days Late and Billions of Dollars Short: The Employment Effects of Delays in Paycheck Protection Program Financing
Delay in the provision of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans due to insufficient initial funding under the CARES Act substantially and persistently reduced employment. Delayed loans increased job losses in May and persistently reduced recalls throughout the summer. The magnitude and heterogeneity of effects suggest significant barriers to obtaining external financing, particularly among small firms. Effects are inequitably distributed: larger among the self-employed, less well paid, less well educated and--importantly for the design of future programs--in very small firms. Our estimates ...
Discussion Paper
Who Received PPP Loans by Fintech Lenders?
Small businesses not only account for 47 percent of U.S employment but also provide a pathway to success for minorities and women. During the coronavirus pandemic, these small businesses—especially those owned by minorities—were hard hit as consumers reduced spending disproportionately on services that require in-person physical interaction, such as hotels and restaurants. In response, the U.S. government launched the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to provide guaranteed and potentially forgivable small business loans. In this post, we examine financial technology (fintech) lenders ...