The guaranteed lending programs of the Small Business Administration (SBA) are large and growing rapidly. The SBA’s fiscal year 2008 performance budget calls for $25 billion in guaranteed loans for small businesses—a new record for the agency. Some critics of SBA programs suggest they do not...

In this paper we empirically test whether the Small Business Administration’s main guaranteed lending program—the 7(a) program—has a greater impact on economic performance in low-income markets than in others. This hypothesis is predicated on our previous research (Craig, Jackson, and...