The Central European countries became members of the European Union (EU) in May 2004. Has their accession into the EU also resulted in a stronger financial integration with the global economy in general and with the "old" EU countries in particular? Based on a cointegration analysis applied to...

In this study, we use data from the Federal Reserve’s 1993, 1998 and 2003 Surveys of Small Business Finances to classify small businesses into four groups based upon their credit needs and to model the credit allocation process into a sequence of three steps. First, do firms need credit? We...

In this study, we use data from the SSBFs to provide new information about the use of credit by small businesses in the U.S. More specifically, we first analyze firms that do and do not use credit; and then analyze why some firms use trade credit while others use bank credit. We find that one in...

In this study, we analyze the firm’s choice of legal form of organization (“LFO”). We find that only about one in three firms begins operations as a proprietorship, while almost as many begin as limited-liability companies and as corporations. Moreover, this distribution is remarkably...

Small businesses occupy an iconic place in American public policy debates. This paper discusses interactions between the federal tax code, small business, and the economy. We summarize the characteristics of small businesses, identify the tax provisions that most affect small businesses, and...

The paper aims to investigate the impact of the liberalization of European Telecommunications Markets, on the Business Ownership Rate, the Employment, the Gross Domestic Product, and the Investment in ICT, in two European countries: Germany and Portugal. For this purpose, a Cointegrated Vector...