In a seminal article on small business lending, Petersen & Rajan (2002) argue that technological changes have revolutionized small business lending markets, weakening the reliance of small businesses on local lenders and increasing geographic distances between firms and their credit suppliers....

Most small business lending from banks originates with institutions that have a local branch, but “out-of-market” lending does not. Supporting the view that proximity is conducive to lending, I find that only about 10 percent of small business lending is from banks with no branch in the...

With banks still facing challenges, alternative sources of credit are likely to play an increasingly important role in financing small businesses. The authors describe what ACCION USA has learned as its approach to microlending has evolved.

In 2003, the Survey of Small Business Finances (SSBF), conducted by the Federal Reserve Board, implemented the use of incentives to increase response rates. This study examines the effects of some of the characteristics of the implementation - such as level of effort, time in queue, and...

In recent years, the distance between bank lenders and their small business borrowers has increased, and today borrowers in historically underserved areas are farther away from their lenders, Atlanta Fed research shows.

We empirically test whether SBA-guaranteed lending has a greater impact on economic performance in markets with a high percentage of potential minority small businesses. This hypothesis is predicated on priors related to three overlapping assumptions. These three assumptions are: (1) The classic...

SBA guaranteed-lending programs are one of many government-sponsored market interventions aimed at promoting small business. The rationale for providing SBA loan guarantees is often based on the argument that they reduce credit rationing in low-income markets for small business loans. In this...

This Letter compares small business loans made by banks inside and outside of a local market area and discusses how the mix might affect the measurement of the degree of competition among lenders.

Historically, small businesses have tended to turn to local lenders for credit. In recent years, however, technological advances in processing information and assessing credit risk have raised the potential for loosening the geographic ties between small business borrowers and lenders. This...