Abstract

Our study identifies regional traits associated with small business viability, paying particular attention to bank lending to minority-owned firms. Although creditworthy minority business enterprises (MBEs) have less access to bank financing than similar White-owned firms, they have increased their nationwide employee numbers substantially since 2002, more so indeed than White-owned firms. The discouraged borrower incidence among creditworthy MBEs, nonetheless, is quite high. Given their limited access to financing, the dynamism displayed by these firms is surprising. To link regional characteristics to bank lending policies, local economic well-being measures and racial intolerance levels are used to identify areas where banks participate in Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) agreements, a proxy for their willingness to disregard owner race and firm geographic location when financing firms. We find that regional prosperity is positively linked to CRA agreement presence, while a legacy of institutionalized racism is negatively linked. We next explore whether the presence of local CRA agreements is linked to relatively fewer discouraged small business borrowers. The incidence of creditworthy borrowers discouraged from seeking bank financing drops significantly when CRA agreements are present locally.

中文翻译：

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区域特征与小企业生存能力之间的联系

摘要

我们的研究确定了与小企业生存能力相关的区域特征，特别关注银行向少数族裔企业提供的贷款。尽管信誉良好的少数族裔企业 (MBE) 获得银行融资的机会少于类似的白人拥有的公司，但自 2002 年以来，它们在全国范围内的员工人数大幅增加，实际上比白人拥有的公司更多。尽管如此，在信誉良好的 MBE 中，不鼓励借款人的发生率还是相当高的。鉴于融资渠道有限，这些公司表现出的活力令人惊讶。为了将区域特征与银行贷款政策联系起来，当地经济福利措施和种族不容忍程度被用来确定银行参与社区再投资法案 (CRA) 协议的领域，代表他们在为公司融资时愿意无视所有者种族和公司地理位置。我们发现，地区繁荣与 CRA 协议的存在呈正相关，而制度化的种族主义遗产则呈负相关。接下来，我们将探讨本地 CRA 协议的存在是否与相对较少的灰心小企业借款人有关。当当地存在 CRA 协议时，不鼓励寻求银行融资的信誉良好的借款人的发生率显着下降。