Last month, the MEJ introduced you to a compendium of research on small business finance released by the SBA Office of Advocacy and entitled, appropriately enough, Small Business in Focus: Finance. The first report was, you may recall, a general overview of the small business lending market according to loan amounts and lending institutions. That [...]

Congress has been working with quiet but surprisingly diligent effort to pass the several pieces of legislation needed to (finally) reauthorize the U.S. Small Business Administration — preferably for longer than a few months. So far, bills to reauthorize and “improve” the SBA’s entrepreneurial development programs and its research grants programs have passed in the [...]

Last week, the SBA Office of Advocacy released a compendium of research on small businesses and access to capital, a topic very much in the forefront of small business policy makers over the last ten months. The research consists of four papers, released under the single and easy to understand title Small Business in Focus: [...]

Speaking of re-authorization, last week, the House Small Business Committee continued down their own path to SBA re-authorization — having already dealt with the entrepreneurial development programs — with a look at the SBA’s access to capital programs. The Committee held a somewhat lengthy hearing with two panels of witnesses, one of which held representatives [...]

The SBA Office of Advocacy released its annual report on small and microbusiness lending last week, for the data year encompassing June 2007 to June 2008. As the economy slowed through the second half of the period, small business lending overall slowed significantly. Dollar volume was up by 4%, or $26.7 billion, but that was [...]

The Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act (H.R. 627) passed the House more or less painlessly, after the consideration of a scant sixteen amendments or so, at the end of last month. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn. That body is currently considering the Credit CARD Act (S.414), which was offered by Senate Banking Committee Chairman [...]

During the period between June 2006 and June 2007, the number of small business loans increased by a robust 15%, according to the SBA Office of Advocacy’s annual survey of small business lending in the United States, unsurprisingly entitled Small Business and Micro Business Lending in the United States for Data Years 2006-2007, which was [...]

Yes, fans, there’s yet another spat over loan caps going on, this time over the Community Express pilot version of the 7(a) loan program. On the surface, at least, the matters appears to be fairly straightforward. The Small Business Act has a provision in Section 7(a) that prohibits more than 10% of the number of [...]

Small firms that are most likely to be using debt financing are younger, smaller, less profitable, less liquid, and less credit worthy. At the same time, firms with more tangible assets and less personal liability on the part of the business owner are also more likely to opt for debt financing. In fact, the most [...]

Lawmakers at a House subcommittee hearing last week seem to have uncovered the real problem with the SBA loan guaranteed program, which has seen an 18% decline in loan volume so far this fiscal year. First, a handful of large banks that happened to be hip-deep in the sub-prime mortgage mess were making 60% of [...]