| Abstract: | Summary We have shown in this paper a great disparity in the lending activities of a number of Small Business Administration regional
offices. There were considerable differences between these regions on their rates of increase and then decline of loans and
loan dollars issued over the 1968-1976 period and on their loans and loan dollars per unit population, small businesses, and
small business employees. This was found to be the case both for minorities and for the population at large. This, however,
is especially disturbing in the context of minority lending activity since SBA lending was the chief vehicle of the federal
government’s minority economic development efforts from 1968 to 1976. The economic well-being of a great many minorities with
ties to the small business sector was to a large measure affected unequally by the differential SBA lending rates between
regions. In fact, insofar as the measures we have selected can be related to “need,” the policy seems to have been counterproductive,
having concentrated lending activity precisely in the regions where minority small business in terms of population, employment,
and numbers of establishments was strongest and by implication the “need” was least! |
