The State of Small Business Lending: Credit Access During the Recovery and How Technology May Change the Game

65 Pages Posted: 24 Jul 2014

Date Written: July 22, 2014

Abstract

Small businesses are core to America’s economic competitiveness. Not only do they employ half of the nation’s private sector workforce – about 120 million people – but since 1995 they have created approximately two-thirds of the net new jobs in our country. Yet in recent years, small businesses have been slow to recover from a recession and credit crisis that hit them especially hard. This lag has prompted the question, “Is there a credit gap in small business lending?”

This paper compiles and analyzes the current state of access to bank capital for small business from the best available sources. We explore both the cyclical impact of the recession on small business and access to credit, and several structural issues in that impede the full recovery of bank credit markets for smaller loans.

Suggested Citation

Mills, Karen and McCarthy, Brayden, The State of Small Business Lending: Credit Access During the Recovery and How Technology May Change the Game (July 22, 2014). Harvard Business School General Management Unit Working Paper No. 15-004, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2470523 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2470523

Karen Mills (Contact Author)

Harvard Business School ( email )

Soldiers Field Road
Morgan 270C
Boston, MA 02163
United States

Brayden McCarthy

Fundera Inc. ( email )

123 William Street, 21st Floor
New York, NY 10038
United States

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