| | | This paper uses data from the 1993 National Survey of Small Business
Finances to determine the extent to which minority-owned small businesses
face constraints in the credit market beyond those faced by white-owned
small businesses. First, we present qualitative evidence indicating that
black- and white-owned firms report similar concerns about the factors
that may affect their businesses except that blacks are far more likely
to report problems with credit availability. Second, we conduct an econometric
analysis of loan denial probabilities by race and find that black owned
small businesses are almost three times more likely to have a loan application
denied. Even after controlling for the differences in credit-worthiness
and other factors that exist between black- and white-owned firms, blacks
are still about twice as likely to be denied credit. A series of specification
checks indicates that this gap is unlikely to be largely attributed to
omitted variable bias. Third, we conduct a similar analysis regarding
interest rates charged to approved loans and find black-owned firms pay
higher interest rates as well. Finally, even these results are likely
to understate differences in credit access because many potential black-owned
firms are not in operation due to the lack of credit and those in business
may be too afraid to apply. These results indicate that the racial disparity
in credit availability is likely caused by discrimination. |