Federal Financial Guarantees Under the Small Business ...

[Pages:33]CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

A

CBO PA P E R

OCTOBER 2007

Federal Financial Guarantees Under the

Small Business Administration's 7(a) Program

Pub. No. 2739

A

CBO

PAPER

Federal Financial Guarantees Under the Small Business Administration's

7(a) Program

October 2007

The Congress of the United States O Congressional Budget Office

Notes

All years referred to in this paper are federal fiscal years. Numbers may not sum to totals because of rounding.

Preface

The Small Business Administration (SBA) guarantees new loans to qualified businesses

each year through its 7(a) program. SBA assumes much of the credit risk on those loans, thereby assisting borrowers by making credit available at an affordable rate.

Since 2005, the budgetary cost of 7(a) loan guarantees--calculated under the rules specified in the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990--has been estimated to be zero, with only minor changes as a result of reestimating the cost on the basis of actual cash flows. Those estimates indicate that the projected cost to the government from defaulted loans (minus any recovered amounts) has been roughly offset by fees collected by SBA from lenders and paid indirectly by borrowers.

At the request of the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the subsidy rate for SBA loan guarantees and tested the sensitivity of those cost estimates using private-sector discount rates and using more recent recovery rates on defaulted loans. This report provides the results of that analysis.

Deborah Lucas and Wendy Kiska prepared the report under the supervision of Robert Dennis and Marvin Phaup of the Macroeconomic Analysis Division. The authors thank Albert Metz and Ravi Prasad, both formerly of CBO, for their work on an earlier version of the project. Mark Hadley, Arlene Holen, Damien Moore, Nathan Musick, David Torregrosa, and Tom Woodward of CBO provided valuable comments and suggestions, as did Donald Marron, formerly of CBO.

Christine Bogusz edited the paper, and Loretta Lettner proofread it. Allan Keaton produced the tables and figures for the paper. Maureen Costantino prepared the paper for publication, with assistance from Christian Howlett, and took the cover photograph. Lenny Skutnik printed copies of the paper. Linda Schimmel handled the print distribution, and Simone Thomas prepared the electronic version for CBO's Web site ().

October 2007

Peter R. Orszag Director

Contents

Summary and Introduction

1

The SBA's 7(a) Program

2

Eligibility Criteria

3

Loan Terms

4

Guarantee Terms

7

Past Performance of 7(a) Loans

11

Current Budget Estimates

14

Alternative Budget Estimates with More Recent Recovery Rates

14

Private-Sector Discount Rates

15

Subsidy Estimates and Sensitivities

16

Value and Risk of SBA's Portfolio

17

Loan Profitability

18

Appendix: Assumptions and Parameters of the Models Used in

This Analysis

21

Tables

1. SBA 7(a) Loan Disbursements by Industry and Cohort,

2004 to 2006

4

2. Distribution of Interest Rate Spreads over the

Prime Rate for the 2006 Cohort of SBA 7(a) Loans

7

3. SBA 7(a) Program Subsidy Rates Recorded in the

Federal Budget

15

4. Estimated Subsidy Rates for the SBA 7(a) Program

17

5. SBA 7(a) Subsidy Rates by Subprogram

18

A-1. SBA 7(a) Data Used in CBO's Analysis

21

A-2. Distribution of Ratios of Liabilities to Assets for

SBA 7(a) and SmallCap Borrowers

22

A-3. CBO's Assumed Parameters for the Poisson Jump Process

24

VI FEDERAL FINANCIAL GUARANTEES UNDER THE SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION'S 7(A) PROGRAM

Figures

1. Annual SBA 7(a) Guaranteed Loan Disbursements by

Number and Dollar Volume, 1988 to 2006

3

2. Annual SBA 7(a) Guaranteed Loan Disbursements by

Initial Term to Maturity and Cohort, 2001 to 2006

5

3. Annual SBA 7(a) Guaranteed Loan Disbursements by

Size and Cohort, 2001 to 2006

6

4. Interest Rate Spreads over the Prime Rate for

SBA 7(a) Loans and for All Commercial and

Industrial Loans, by Cohort, 1988 to 2006

8

5. Default and Recovery Rates

9

6. Lifetime SBA Default and Recovery Rates

10

7. Annual Default Rate for SBA 7(a) Loans by Size

11

8. Annual Default Rate for SBA 7(a) Loans by

Term to Maturity

12

9. Cumulative Default Rates on SBA 7(a) Loans and on

S&P Corporate Bonds

13

10. Annual Prepayment Rate for SBA 7(a) Loans by

Term to Maturity

14

11. Distribution of Future Five-Year Net Losses for

SBA's Current 7(a) Portfolio

19

A-1. Annual SBA Default Rates With and Without

Time-Varying Volatility of Asset Values

23

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