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Why small businesses were hit harder by the recent recession

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Although both large and small businesses felt the sting of job losses during the 2007-09 downturn, small firms experienced disproportionate declines. A study of the recession?s employment effect on small firms suggests that poor sales and economic uncertainty were the main reasons for their weak performance and sluggish recovery?problems that affected large firms too, but to a lesser degree. Although a tightened credit supply constrained some small firms, weak consumer demand for the firms? products and services was a more pressing factor, reducing revenues and dampening new investment spending.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Cororaton & Sagiri Kitao & Sergiu Laiu & Ayşegül Şahin, 2011. "Why small businesses were hit harder by the recent recession," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 17(July).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednci:y:2011:i:july:n:v.17no.4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. David A. Brauer & Charles Steindel, 1994. "Credit supply constraints on business activity, excluding construction," Monograph, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, number 1994cscobe.
    2. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1996. "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-15, February.
    3. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 309-340.
    4. John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2010. "Who Creates Jobs? Small vs. Large vs. Young," Working Papers 10-17, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cho, Moonhee & Joo, Hyungseok, 2024. "Sovereign default and FDI transactions: Evidence from Argentina," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    2. Jung, Hyejin & Hwang, JungTae & Kim, Byung-Keun, 2018. "Does R&D investment increase SME survival during a recession?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 190-198.
    3. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Mandelman, Federico & Yu, Yang & Zanetti, Francesco, 2021. "The “Matthew effect” and market concentration: Search complementarities and monopsony power," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 62-90.
    4. Teng Ye & Jingnan Zheng & Junhui Jin & Jingyi Qiu & Wei Ai & Qiaozhu Mei, 2024. "Using Artificial Intelligence to Unlock Crowdfunding Success for Small Businesses," Papers 2407.09480, arXiv.org.
    5. Shaun Meric Menezes & Ashok Kumar & Shantanu Dutta, 2025. "Navigating in Turbulent Times: Using Social Media to Examine Small and family-Owned Business Topics and Sentiments during the COVID-19 Crisis," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 1671-1691, August.
    6. Clymo, AJ, 2017. "Heterogeneous Firms, Wages, and the Effects of Financial Crises," Economics Discussion Papers 20572, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    7. Matěj Bajgar & Petr Janský & Tijmen Tuinsma, 2025. "Tax Compliance of Multinationals and Industry Concentration in the European Union," Working Papers 038, EU Tax Observatory.
    8. Çağlar Hamarat & Daniel Broby, 2022. "Regulatory constraint and small business lending: do innovative peer-to-peer lenders have an advantage?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-25, December.
    9. Brucal,Arlan Zandro Ilagan & Grover,Arti Goswami, 2023. "Masters of Disasters : The Heterogeneous Effects of a Crisis on Micro-Sized Firms," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10556, The World Bank.
    10. Mohammad Amin & Filip Jolevski & Asif M. Islam, 2025. "What contributes to SME vs. large firm resilience to economic crisis in developing countries? A decomposition analysis based on the COVID-19 shock," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 69(6), pages 3511-3545, December.
    11. Kudlyak, Marianna & Sánchez, Juan M., 2017. "Revisiting the behavior of small and large firms during the 2008 financial crisis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 48-69.
    12. Staples, Aaron J. & McCullough, Michael, 2025. "Tariffs and U.S. beer demand: How protectionist policies could impact market shares and consumer welfare," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    13. Christopher Behrer & Colleen Kamen, 2012. "Navigating uncertainty and growing jobs: considering small employer firm resilience during challenging economic times," Community Development Working Paper 2012-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    14. Sedláček, Petr, 2020. "Lost generations of firms and aggregate labor market dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 16-31.
    15. Lai, Yanqing & Saridakis, George & Blackburn, Robert & Johnstone, Stewart, 2016. "Are the HR responses of small firms different from large firms in times of recession?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 113-131.
    16. Sung-Eun Yu, 2017. "The Behavior of Small and Large Firms during Business Cycle Episodes and during Monetary Policy Episodes: A Comparison of Earlier and Recent Periods," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2017_05, University of Utah, Department of Economics.

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