This essay is intended to begin the elaboration of a theme: the interaction between the observed sizes of firms and their internal decision making procedures. This theme is a major one in the symphony of entrepreneurial activity. The entrepreneur, as the maker and changer of economic and...

This work examines the leverage ratios of firms covered by the 1998 SSBF Survey. We find that small firms in general are significantly more levered than their larger counterparts in an industry-matched Compustat sample, but the difference is at least partially explained by differences in...

While all firms experience varying degrees of difficulty in complying with environmental regulations, small firms have their own set of special problems in dealing with environmental compliance. The lack of legal and engineering staffs, the management structure, and a high cost per unit of...

The beneficial economic effects of entrepreneurial activity can only be realised if such activity is relatively unconstrained in both product and factor markets, finance has been widely identified as a potential constraint on entrepreneurial activity due to either debt or equity gaps. However,...

Trade credit is a major source of financing for small firms. This article examines the extent to which small firms use trade credit as well as the extent to which they use "free" versus "costly" trade credit. Those firms that use free trade credit make payment within the discount period....

Using the 1998 Survey of Small Business Finances and banking data to produce a bank-firm match, the author tests for evidence of standardized versus relationship lending methods in both total bank credit as well as credit emanating from the firm’s most important source of financial services,...

Capital structure choices and preferences in small, rapidly growing corporations are examined. As much of capital structure theory involves variables not easily or practically quantified (e.g., preferences, motivations, agency costs, information asymmetries) a survey was designed in an attempt...

The inverse association of capitalization and performance is found to hold over a broader range of firms than has been previously studied. This result is found by merging data for listed United States firms with data for listed Australian companies, which are on average much smaller than their...

The close link between the personal financial affairs of a small business owner and his or her firm has been noted in prior research. This article compares attitudes toward risk on the part of small business owners (SBOs) and non-small business owners (NSBOs). In addition, it compares the...

Our purpose in this review is to develop one explanation of market behavior which is consistent with the many empirical findings that appear to be inconsistent with the market efficiency hypothesis. To date, researchers have attempted to reconcile their empirical results with market efficiency...