"This paper explores the widely accepted view that Wal-Mart causes significant harm to the traditional, small "mom and pop" business sector of the U.S. economy. We present the first rigorous econometric investigation of this issue by examining the rate of self-employment and the number of small...

We find that presidential and congressional influences affect the rate of disaster declaration and the allocation of FEMA disaster expenditures across states. States politically important to the president have a higher rate of disaster declaration by the president, and disaster expenditures are...