This paper describes three new sources of data on small business finances: Bank Call Report data on small business lending, the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), and the 1993 National Survey of Small Business Finances (NSSBF). Each of these data sources offers publicly available micro-level data useful for examining a wide variety of issues and questions about small business finances. A number of studies which have utilized these data are cited and information on how to access these data is provided.

Typically, small banks lend a larger proportion of their assets to small businesses than do large banks. The recent wave of bank mergers has thinned the ranks of small banks, raising the concern that small firms may find it difficult to access bank credit. However, bank consolidation will reduce small business credit only if small banks enjoy an advantage in lending to small businesses. We test the existence of a small bank cost advantage in small business lending by conducting the following simple test: If such advantages exist, then we should observe small businesses in areas with few small banks to have less bank credit. Using data on small business borrowers from the 1993 National Survey of Small Business Finance, we find that the probability of a small firm having a line of credit from a bank does not decrease in the long run when there are fewer small banks in the area, although short-run disruptions may occur. Nor do we find that firms in areas with few small banks are any more likely to repay trade credit late, suggesting that such firms are no more credit constrained than firms in areas with many small banks.