The Aspen Institute and the Corporation for Enterprise Development were the catalyst for the Micro Enterprise industry and the FIELD division of the Aspen Institute has served as the research arm. We’ve culled FIELD’s research and posted the more current and relevant reports on a special FIELD page.
RESEARCH
Empowering Entrepreneurs At Tax Time.
Center For Enterprise Development (February 2012)
This report includes research about the role of self-employment in job creation and community wealth building; the vital connection between tax preparation and microenterprise development services; and key lessons gained through four years of the SETI Demonstration and other SETI partnerships.
Women’s Foundation, California Budget Project – Falling Behind
(February 2012)
The Great Recession hit California early and hit the state hard. What began as a “mancession” rippled out through the economy, taking a signifi cant toll on California’s women and their families. In fact, this downturn was the first in recent history in which women experienced substantial job loss. Single women supporting families were particularly hard hit: The economic downturn reduced employment for single mothers far more than it did for married parents, and single mothers who remained employed saw the largest decline in their average workweek in at least two decades.
Making California’s New Healthcare Exchange Work for Small Businesses
Small Business Majority
(February 2012)
A three-part forum on how to best implement the Small Business Health Options Program Exchange. The session topics covered major issues before the board and possible solutions: 1. high-quality insurance at an affordable rate; 2. customer service and additional administrative services; 3. successful outreach and marketing strategies.
Start-Ups, Not Small Businesses, Are Key to Job Creation
Martin A. Sullivan (January 2012)
In an October 23, 2011, op-ed in The New York Times, Jared Bernstein neatly laid out some earthshaking facts. He summarized recent research that says small business is not the engine of job creation that politicians and the press repeatedly claim it to be, ‘‘To the extent that size matters at all for job growth, it’s really about new companies that start small.”
PPIC – The Great Recession and Distribution of Income in California
(2011)
The effects of the Great Recession have been felt far and wide. According to official measures, the recession ran from December 2007 until June 2009. During that time, California experienced record unemployment, a housing market bust, sizable budget shortfalls, and downturns across nearly all major industries in the state. These problems have continued well past the technical end of the recession.
Pepperdine Business School – The State of Small Business Report
(Fall 2011)
Despite difficult times, California’s small business owners remain resilient. While Tech giants of Silicon Valley and entertainment powerhouses in Los Angeles enjoy much of the spotlight, small businesses quietly propel forward the world’s 8th largest economy. In fact, California’s small businesses represent 99.2% of the state’s employers and account for 51.6% of the private sector jobs. In terms of Gross State Product, small businesses account for 75% of all value added by industries within the state. The statistics are clear, small businesses fuel California’s economy. In order for California’s economy to grow, we need to help small business grow.
Research from Federal Reserved Conference: Small Business and Entrepreneurship in an Economic Recovery
November 9-10, 2011, Agenda
- The Role of Small Business and Entrepreneurship in Job Creation:
- The Declining Average Size of Establishments: Evidence and Explanations
- The Small Business Sector in Recent Recoveries
- Local Roles in Cultivating a Small Business and Entrepreneurial Culture
- The Space Between: Building the Infrastructure for Entrepreneurship in Emerging Domains of Activity
- Gazelle Index: New National Survey of High Performing, Small, Minority-owned Businesses)
- On the Earnings and Employment of Female Hispanic Entrepreneurs in the 2000s
- Determinants of Rural Self-Employment: Insights from County-Level Data
- Capital Availability in Inner Cities: What Role for Federal Policy?
- Bank Capital Ratios and the Structure of Nonfinancial Industries
- Who Seeks and Who Receives? Implications of Demand for and Access to Financial Capital by Young Firms
CFED – With A Stroke of A Pen
(November 2011)
Two Dozen Low-cost, Politically Viable State Policy Ideas to Increase Financial Security and Opportunity in Tough Fiscal Times.
Overcoming the Gender Gap: Women Entrepreneurs as Economic Drivers
Lesa Mitchell / Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (September 2011)
This paper explores the need for sustained economic recovery in the United States, and the status of women’s entrepreneurship. Despite recent gains, women still lag behind men on key measures of start-up activity, and their firms tend not to grow or prosper as much. Typically, this is seen as a “women’s” issue. In fact, it is an economic issue that affects everyone. Women capable of starting growth companies may well be our greatest under-utilized economic resource.
SBA – Developments in Women-owned Business, 1997-2007
(September 2011)
The most recent in Advocacy’s periodic series of reports on businesses owned by women and men. A teaser – women’s share of total U.S. firms increased from 26 percent in 1997 to 29 percent in 2007; 88 percent were non-employer firms in 2007.
Think Long Committee – Jobs, Infrastructure & the Workforce
(September 2011)
California is the world’s 8th largest economy. But, the competitive climate has become more challenging for California and the nation. California, and the nation as a whole, still can seize economic opportunities, but only if both overcome these multiplying sets of challenges – challenges made even tougher by the ongoing economic downturn and lingering effects from the “Great Recession.”
What Do Small Businesses Do?
Erik Hurst, Benjamin Wild Pugsley (August 2011)
This paper shows that substantial differences exists among U.S. small businesses owners with respect to their ex-ante expectations of future performance, their ex-ante desire for future growth, and their initial motives for starting a business. We show few small businesses intend to bring a new idea to market.
An Economic Growth and Competitiveness Agenda for California
California Lieutenant Governor Newsom (August 2011)
This document outlines how California can retake control and drive forward again, moving California back into the lead on sustainable growth and real job creation—regaining our leadership role as America’s opportunity capital.
PPIC – Unauthorized Immigrants in California, Estimates for Counties
Laura E. Hill, Hans P. Johnson (July 2011)
California has more unauthorized immigrants than any other state, about 2.6 million. For decades, unauthorized immigrants have been a part of California: in many industries in the economy and in rural and urban communities. But recent and comprehensive information about the numbers and location of this population within California—at the county and sub-county level—does not exist.
CDFI Growth and Sustainability
The Babcock Foundation (June 2011)
This report will increase our understanding of challenges CDFIs face at different points in their development. CDFIs have struggled during the recession, facing higher delinquencies and default rates, declines in philanthropic generosity, higher costs for and reduced access to capital, and lower profit margins.
The Workforce Investment Act: How is the Federal Funding Being Spent?
California Senate Office of Research (May 2011)
Hundreds of millions of dollars are allocated annually to California through this federal act, and most local Workforce Investment Boards report spending far less on job training than on employment services at One-Stop Career Centers.
Bank Report Card – Making the Grade: Are California’s Biggest Banks Failing Consumers?
California Reinvestment Coalition (March 2011)
This report examines the six largest banks in California to evaluate the extent to which bank products and services are accessible to California’s under-served communities and to evaluate the extent these banks meet the needs of low and moderate income customers. CRC graded each bank on six measures: the combined impact of high fees, branch access, and intricate policies make maintaining bank accounts particularly complicated for low and moderate income communities. For these customers, the cost of a mistake is very expensive, and could determine whether or not they can pay for their basic living needs. CRC Press release.
A Newly Crowded Marketplace:How For‐Profit Lenders Are Serving Microentrepreneurs
FIELD at The Aspen Institute (March 2011)
It is important to understand what this changing marketplace might hold. What are the implications of this new landscape of providers for microentrepreneurs and the nonprofit microlending industry? What might nonprofit microlenders learn from the experiences of the for-profit lenders in scaling their services? And, what opportunities might exist for collaboration?
State of Women-Owned Businesses Report,a Summary of Important Trends, 1997–2011
American Express OPEN (March 2011)
Using data from the three most recent business census surveys, the most recent just published in December 2010. This report provides estimates of the number, employment and revenues of women-owned firms as of 201.1 By sharing these estimates in a timely manner, it is our aim to inform business planning, program development and enterprise support activities—as well as to shine a light on gains made and barriers to address.
Department of Economic Development Report: Empresarios Comunitarios, Micro-Lending Pilot Program (Draft)
Dolores Huerta Foundation (February 2011)
The DHF set out to launch a micro-lending pilot program, building capacity by researching small business curriculae and micro-enterprise development models. Additionally, site visits were made to gleam best practices and observe successful micro-lending operations.
Job Creation on a Budget: How Regional Industry Clusters Can Add Jobs, Bolster Entrepreneurship, and Spark Innovation
Mark Muro, Kenan Fikri (January 2011)
The usual recipe of tax credits, R&D, training programs, and physical infrastructure is not sufficient, by itself, to spur ‘organic’ job creation. States also need to cultivate their industry clusters—geographic concentrations of interconnected firms and supporting organizations. Properly designed, cluster strategies are a low-cost way to stimulate innovation, new-firm start-ups, and job creation by helping to link and align the many factors that influence firm and regional growth.
Job Creation Through Microentrepreneurship
Elizabeth de Renzy (October 2010)
Is microenterprise development an effective job creation strategy during a recession? Key findings on women who entered employment, self-employment, providing jobs for others, job retention and creation, and full-time jobs.
The Intuit 2020 Report (October 2010)
With a new decade upon us, a range of demographic, economic, social, and technological shifts are changing the way we live and operate around the world. The Intuit 2020 report looks at the significant trends and forces that are affecting consumers and small businesses, and those who serve them, over the next decade.
Business Relocation and Homegrown Jobs, 1992–2006
Jed Kolko (September 2010)
This analysis reconfirms that business relocation—the movement of business establishments from one state to another—accounts for a very small share of California’s employment fluctuations. In fact, relocation accounts for a smaller share of job gains and losses in California than in most other states, in part because most California businesses lie far from the border of neighboring states.
Kauffman Foundation Research Series: Firm Formation and Economic Growth The Importance of Start-ups in Job Creation and Job Destruction
Tim Kane (July 2010)
By now it is well understood that firms large and small are continuously and simultaneously destroying and creating jobs. However, beyond the job churn at existing firms, there is a dynamic in firm birth that seems to be very important for understanding job creation. Put simply, this paper shows that without start-ups, there would be no net job growth in the U.S. economy. This fact is true on average, but also is true for all but seven years for which the United States has data going back to 1977.
Microenterprises in the Economy
California Senate Office of Research (June 2010)
Update of information originally published in a July 2008 Policy Briefs report concerning the microenterprise sector in California, the number of microenterprises in California, the number of persons “employed” and jobs created by them, share of workforce in urban and rural counties, and changes in state/federal tax revenues due to the sector. Plus, new information regarding whether microenterprises continue to stimulate California’s economy and what role the government should have in simulating development and preservation of microenterprises. CAMEO Press release.
California Jobs Report
USDA Rural Development (February 2010)
The USDA was able to host forty-three forums across California. Through these amazing partnerships we were able to connect with almost 900 Californians from all reaches of the state. Concerned about their communities: these participants voiced their issues and shared their ideas for stimulating the local economies and creating jobs and includes specific ideas and recommendations as shared from the ones who know it best – the people who live and work in California
2010 Report: Women Entrepreneurs Worldwide
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor – GEM (2010)
This report seeks to understand global differences in the frequency and nature of women’s entrepreneurship, and makes comparisons with men across various societies. The researchers also analyzed societal attitudes about entrepreneurship, paying particular attention to differences in perceptions among men and women. Furthermore, they explored the impact of the recession on views about starting and growing businesses among women and men entrepreneurs.
Growing America Through Entrepreneurship: Final Evaluation of Project GATE
IMPAQ (December 2009)
This evaluation of Project GATE to address the following questions: • Could Project GATE be replicated? • Was Project GATE effective in increasing business ownership, employment, and self-sufficiency? Project GATE was implemented in seven sites in three states—Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Maine—between fall 2003 and summer 2005. Almost anyone interested in starting or growing a small business was eligible to participate in Project GATE. Participants were offered an initial assessment of their business needs, classroom training, one-on-one business counseling, and assistance in applying for business financing.
Latina Entrepreneur SBE
Magnus Lofstrom, Timothy Bates (December 2009)
We compare earnings of Hispanic female entrepreneurs to both Latina wage/salary workers and to self-employed female non-Hispanic whites. Latina entrepreneurs are observed to have lower mean earnings than both white female entrepreneurs and Latina employees. However, our findings indicate that Latina entrepreneurs often do well, once differences in mean observable characteristics, such as education, are taken into account.
Latina Entrepreneurship and Some Recent Self-Employment Trends in the United States
Magnus Lofstrom (August 2009)
Hispanics play an important role in the self-employment growth. Fueled by immigration, they are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the US. With high employment rates and a lack of labor market success, what are alternative policies to improve economic outcomes?
PPIC – Do California’s Enterprise Zones Create Jobs?
Jed Kolko, David Neumark (June 2009)
California’s enterprise zone program was established in 1986 to spur the creation of businesses in economically distressed areas and to create job opportunities for economically disadvantaged workers. In this report, we assess the degree to which the state’s largest economic development program has met its most important goal: creating employment.
Very Small Business Creates Very Large Change
Terry Bibbens, Philip Borden (January 2009)
The SBA defines small businesses as companies with up to 500 employees, and typically focus on those with over 20. Private investment and public policy generally target the same group; however, the real heart of job growth in the small business community is businesses with fewer than five employees. Addressing the needs of this segment can generate profound positive economic and social consequences.
Mexican-American Self-Employment: A Dynamic Analysis of Business Ownership
Magnus Lofstrom, Chunbei Wang (2009)
This paper analyzes causes of the low self-employment rate among Mexican-Americans by studying self-employment entry and exits. Importantly, we analyze self-employment by recognizing heterogeneity in business ownership across industries and show that a classification of firms by human and financial capital “intensiveness”, or entry barriers, is effective in explaining differences in entrepreneurship across ethnic groups.
Businesses Owned by Women of Color Growing Faster Than All US Firms, CWBR Press Release
Center for Women’s Business Research (November 2008)
Businesses owned by women of color are growing three times faster than all U.S. firms. The biennial update on the trends of businesses owned by women of color. The report found that businesses owned by African American, Asian, and Hispanic women business owners substantially outpace all U.S. firms in the growth of revenues and number of employees.
More Employers, More Jobs, More Money: An Empirical Analysis of Local Economic Development Policy Impacts in U.S. Cities
Stuart Strother (December 2007)
This study analyzes the relationship between local economic development policy and economic growth in a data set of 412 U.S. cities. Local government leaders in the U.S. employ a multitude of programs and policies in the name of economic development. The past few decades have seen a surge in local economic development policies, yet research analyzing their effectiveness is sparse.
Mexican-Hispanic Self-Employment Entry: The Role of Business Start-Up Constraints
Magnus Lofstrom, Chunbei Wang (September 2007)
This article examines causes of the low self-employment rates among Mexican-Hispanics by studying self-employment entry. The data show that Mexican-Hispanics are less likely to be self-employed or enter self-employment, relative to non-Hispanic whites. Also, the lower self-employment entry rates among Mexican-Hispanics are due to lower entry rates into business ownership of firms in relatively high-barrier industries. In fact, Hispanics are more likely to start up a business in a low-barrier industry than whites.
Comprehensive Assessment of Self-Employment Assistance Programs
DTI Associates (June 2001)
This report on Self-Employment Assistance (SEA) Programs catalogs the eight state
programs that were established between 1995 and 1999 and presents participant outcomes that were collected through a survey of former participants. In addition to cataloging the details of program operation in each of the states, reports participant outcomes as well as differences in participant outcomes from those of a comparison group that did not participate in SEA, even though they had been eligible.