Bostic and Samolyk, “The Role of Personal Wealth in
Small Business Finance,”4
provides one of the most detailed
studies on this topic using data from the Federal Reserve’s
National Survey of Small Business Finance (NSSBF)
and the Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF). The study concludes,
“The role of personal wealth in small business financing
certainly appears to be significant” and “for firms
that rely heavily on loan financing, the use of personal
commitments appears to be very important, if not vital.”5
Indeed, loans having a personal guarantee comprise
40.9% of all loans and account for 55.5% of small business
credit dollars