Home > Library > The happy story of small business finance
Author Andy Yeh Alpha
This research article empirically tests the financial contentment hypothesis for small business owners in both America and Britain.
Description:
We empirically examine the American and British survey datasets for about 16,000 privately held small businesses. The financial behavior of private firms demonstrates substantial financial contentment. We find fewer than 10% of the British firms seek rapid firm expansion while only 1.32% of American private firms view a lack of capital other than working capital as a major financial problem. Financial performance indicators such as sales growth, return-on-assets, and net profit margin are insignificant determinants of small business finance. This evidence contradicts the conventional financial lifecycle paradigm of Berger and Udell (1995, 1998, 2002). Younger and less educated private-firm owners more actively use external finance even though more education reduces the fear of bank loan denial, whereas, older and wiser small business owners with better education are less likely to tap into external finance.
Our financial contentment hypothesis for privately held firms also extends to small businesses that seek rapid firm expansion. These high-growth firms participate more in the bank loan markets than low-growth firms. In stark contrast to the financing-gap hypothesis of Berger and Udell (1995, 1997, 2002), our financial contentment hypothesis observes the importance of both social networks and connections for small business finance and in turn confirms the empirical nexus between private owner involvement and sustainable growth. In this light, small private firms serve as a robust investment vehicle for long-term sustainable development.
Overall, our empirical evidence sheds skeptical light on the theoretical plausibility of the agency lifecycle prediction that the vast majority of private firms suffer from severe financial constraints or financing gaps (Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Jensen, 1986; Stulz, 1990; Lang, Stulz, and Walking, 1991; Berger and Udell, 1995, 1998, 2002; Ang, Cole, and Lin, 2000; Bitler, Moskowitz, and Vissing-Jorgensen, 2005). The preponderance of our empirical results proposes a case for an alternative theory of corporate finance for privately held firms that differ from publicly traded corporations in many fundamental ways. This proposal calls for a paradigm shift in rethinking about the conventional wisdom that private firms cannot grow as fast as their public counterparts due to a lack of reasonable access to external capital.
2022-04-15 10:32:00 Friday ET

Corporate investment management This review of corporate investment literature focuses on some recent empirical studies of M&A, capital investm
2025-05-29 08:25:28 Thursday ET

Serial venture capitalist Ben Horowitz describes many hard truths, lessons, and insights from his entrepreneurial journey of running LoudCloud from a Silico
2020-08-26 10:33:00 Wednesday ET

Through purposeful leadership, senior managers inspire teams to reach heights of both innovation and profitability with great brand identity and customer lo
2019-11-01 12:31:00 Friday ET

Kourtney Kardashian shares the best money advice from her father. This advice reminds her that money just cannot buy happiness. As the eldest of the Kardash
2023-05-31 03:15:40 Wednesday ET

The U.S. further derisks and decouples from China. Why does the U.S. seek to further economically decouple from China? In recent times, th
2018-03-11 08:27:00 Sunday ET

At 89 years old, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing announces his retirement in March 2018. With a personal net worth of $35 billion, Li has an incredible ra