Financing Small Business in America

Examining the role of the public sector in small-business debt-capital formation, this book describes current approaches, conceptually and pragmatically, and evaluates their advantages and disadvantages from a variety of perspectives. It also suggests a model for improving our approach to small business capital formation in the United States.

Financing small business creation and expansion has always been difficult. Private debt capital providers tend to avoid small business because the latter are preceived to be too risky. Yet because of the importance of small businesses to national economic growth, stability, and innovation, ensuring that these businesses can obtain and effectively use appropriate levels of debt capital is vital to national well-being. How, and to what extent, should the public sector intervene in the debt capital markets to ensure that sufficient capital flows to small businesses? This book is an attempt to answer that question.

ROGER E. HAMLIN is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Professor of Public Administration, and Research Fellow in the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. He and Thomas S. Lyons are co-authors of Creating an Economic Development Action Plan: A Guide for Development Professionals, Revised and Updated Edition (Praeger, 2001), and Economy without Walls: Managing Local Development in a Restructuring World (Praeger, 1996).

THOMAS S. LYONS is Associate Professor of Urban and Public Affairs, University of Louisville. He is the Director of the Master of Urban Planning Program and founding Director of the Center for Research on Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development.