Some Additional Comments on the Sources and Measurement of the Benefits of Small Business Assistance Programs

This article continues a longstanding debate between the authors and Dr. William C. Wood on the usefulness of a particular application of cost-benefit analysis to evaluate small business assistance programs. We provide further discussions of the measurement of primary and secondary benefits with specific reference to the illustrative cases Wood presented in his 1999 article. We then review Wood's suggestions for improvements to small business program evaluations and discuss the progress made in recent evaluations of small business assistance programs. Finally, we reiterate the importance of innovation as an additional source of "secondary" benefits to the economy.