Most U.S. business owners make a decision about the legal form of their business at startup and rarely change it within the first few years of operation. That is the principle finding of a new research report, entitled “How Do Firms Choose Legal Form of Organization?”, written by Rebal Cole with funding from the SBA [...]

Last week, the SBA Office of Advocacy released its annual report to the President on the State of Small Business for the year 2009. It must have been quite the chore for a year that many people would very much prefer to forget, which may account for the surprisingly political tone of the document. The [...]

Congressional Republicans have been indulging in a few schoolyard antics that we parents might use as examples to our children of poor sportsmanship, conduct that undesirable and not to be emulated. For example, thanks to the arcane rules of the Senate, Republicans brought the work of that body to a halt last Wednesday by refusing [...]

Perspective really is everything. Late last month, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Ranking Member Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Committee Member Mark Pryor (D-AK) were patting themselves and each other on the back for their bipartisan legislative proposal, the Job Impact Analysis Act of 2010 (S. 3024). Their dignified happy dance reflected the times. [...]

Small entities — including small businesses, small and local governments and small non- profits — saved $7 billion in first-year costs and $745 million in annual recurring expenses, thanks to the SBA’s Office of Advocacy in its role as enforcer of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (Reg Flex). That’s the big take-away in the Obama Administration’s [...]

Back in June, President Obama nominated Dr. Winslow Sargeant to the position of Chief Counsel of the SBA Office of Advocacy. As the MEJ reported at the time, this was also something of a mystery appointment. Traditionally, Advocacy’s Chief Counsel has been appointed from the ranks of the legal profession, which makes sense in the [...]

Course work in entrepreneurship is becoming more and more commonplace on college campuses but, so far, little attention has been paid to the question of whether entrepreneurship education is effective. So, researchers from the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Stern School of Business and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, [...]

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: [...]

Earlier this month, President Obama quietly fingered Winslow Sargeant, another venture capitalist, to head up the SBA Office of Advocacy. If confirmed, Sargeant will be moving into the position from Venture Investors LLC, a Madison, WI-based venture firm specializing in health and IT investments. He has been with Venture Investors for four years. Prior to [...]

Family firms that are open to outside management are more likely to engage in internationalization (i.e., export activity) than closed family firms. This unsurprising finding was the overall result of a research study released by the SBA Office of Advocacy last week. It is possible that the most interesting thing about the paper is its [...]