Social distancing restrictions and health- and economic-driven demand shifts from COVID-19 shut down many small businesses with especially negative impacts on minority owners. Is there evidence that the unprecedented federal government response to help small businesses - the $659 billion...

We analyze changes in lending by U.S. banks to businesses during 1994 – 2011. We find thatlending to businesses and, in particular, to small businesses, declined precipitously followingonset of the financial crisis. We also examine the relative changes in business lending by banksthat did, and...

Using a large sample of U.S. small businesses and a new measure of optimism, we examine the role of entrepreneurial optimism in small business lending. We provide evidence that optimistic entrepreneurs are not rationed by lenders. Quite the opposite, our results suggest that they often have...

Was the $278 billion reboot of the $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in early 2021 disbursed equitably to minority communities? This paper provides the first analysis of how PPP funds were disbursed to minority communities in the third and final round of the program, which was...

Aggregate bank-loan data reported by the FDIC show that bank lending to small businesses plummeted during 2009-2011 following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in Sep. 2008 and the onset of the financial crisis, and continued to decline during the post-crisis years 2012-2015. However, the number...