Keys to Rural Revitalization in the 1990s: Discussion

Abstract

My goals today are to suggest what policy makers might learn from the two invited papers and what further research might help address the larger question that is the title of this session, rural revitalization. The two papers are gold mines of valuable data and insights. They suggest that bank financing is not a constraint to rural revitalization but access to specialized expertise and information may be. I urge the authors, and others, to keep mining, specifically: (a) look more closely at nonbank financing; (b) investigate the technical assistance needs of a subgroup of rural businesses, small and new businesses that export their products out of the immediate region; (c) do state-level studies, using states as the unit of analysis, in studies of capital markets and in analysis of development policy; and (d) modify the focus on entrepreneurship from new business owners to entrepreneurial activities both in small firms and in large manufacturing facilities, including branch plants. Drabenstott and Morris provide new evidence that a lack of bank financing is not a cause of rural decline. It is important to keep hammering this point home because some proposals for rural revitalization still focus mostly on business financing. For example, the rural development legislation recently passed by the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture puts $300 of $400 million into rural revolving loan funds. Financing programs may sometimes be warranted. As Drabenstott and Morris note, their data are only for banks, rather than venture capital, seed capital, and other non-bank finance. Also, it appears that their data do not discriminate between lending to different industries or sizes of firms. It would be very helpful if the Federal Reserve Bank would invest in studies that target this kind of financing. Another line for further analysis is suggested by the fact that their sophisticated model explains 24% of the variance in the amount of business lending by banks. What causes the rest? Why are some banks more aggressive lenders than others? As Drabenstott and Morris note, (rural) policy initiatives will fall to state and local governments. Several states are now investing in careful studies of the capital availability in rural areas before setting up new financing programs for rural revitalization and are asking tough questions about non-bank financing and the needs of specific industries. Parenthetically, it is important to note the tremendous disparity among states in the nature of the rural problem. For example, less than half of the states face a dual economy, where metropolitan areas are prospering and rural areas are languishing. In some states rural and metropolitan areas are doing equally badly; and, in several, rural areas are outpacing metropolitan areas (Unruh and John). I was delighted to read the suggestion by Drabenstott and Morris that more attention be focused on technical assistance to rural businesses. Perhaps in this information age, the most important reason to focus special analytical attention and distinctive public resources on rural areas is imperfections in the information market, not the financial market. This brings us to the second paper, by Gladwin et al. It is full of nuggets about the need for technical assistance, such as the remark that entrepreneurs in rural North Florida use the same technical expertise as high tech firms in New England. Yet apparently, the Florida entrepreneurs had to go out of town to get these services. And the level of financial sophistication in Florida businesses is reported to be quite low: 80% did not know their return on equity, return on assets, or debt-toequity ratio. This suggests interesting questions: