Research Department

Private-equity firms have become an increasingly important source of funds for financing US companies. Private-equity firms make investment decisions that can brighten or darken the economic outlook of the communities in which their...

Who lends to small businesses, and how is this changing over time? This paper challenges popular answers to this question. First, despite the growing role of non-banks, banks continue to be the most important source of credit for small...

Companies in financial distress and unable to make payments due to creditors often face an important choice: whether to work out an agreement with debtholders to restructure their obligations on more manageable terms, or to enter formal...

Despite spending more than any other country on health, the U.S. has a mediocre ranking across most health care quality and health outcome indicators. According to a report published in 2012 by the Institute of Medicine, the U.S. wastes...

Did the United Nations' ambitious Millennium Development Goals improve the health of people in emerging regions of the world? In this paper, a discussion of the precursors of higher living standards and better health, Milken Institute...

The Milken Institute has published various reports evaluating urban performance. In addition to its flagship Best-Performing Cities series for both the US and China, the Institute has published two Regional Performance over Time papers to...

If we required a reminder that the United States is more fully integrated into global economic and financial markets than ever, we received it by way of the latest turmoil in U.S. equity markets. By many measures, valuations had become...

Foreign direct investment has never been more important in catalyzing growth, whether in the developed or developing world. Although equity markets around the world have largely recovered since the financial crisis, global capital flows...

In the wake of the global financial crisis, policymakers, investors, and lenders analyzed the lead-up to the meltdown to see what changes could prevent another near-collapse. The result: a new focus on how macroprudential policy can reduce...

While large businesses have resumed international trade at levels seen before the financial crisis, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have not fared as well. For these firms — the backbone of economies everywhere — growth is...