The SMEs in OECD countries occupy a considerable portion of total firms and contribute a large portion of total employment. The objective of the research is to examine the contribution of the financial support measures for SMEs to the economic growth and employment in OECD countries. This research tries to find the policy implications, analyzing and comparing with the efficiency and performance of the financial support measures for SMEs. We carry out the panel regression analysis, pooling the time series data of twenty-nine OECD countries. The fitness of the two models, economic growth and unemployment regression equation, are considerably good. In the first equation, two of five coefficients have the expected positive signs and they are significant. In the second equation, three of five coefficients have the expected negative signs and two of them are significant. The empirical study shows that many financial support measures have a positive effect on economic growth and employment and the magnitudes of their effect are different. Especially, the financial support by government guarantee has a big effect on economic growth and employment. With regard to policy implication, the government support policy for SMEs over the world is asked to build a financial system to contribute economic growth and job expansion more seriously after the global financial crisis. The good economic efficiency can be achieved by more market-oriented financing support measures such as government guarantee rather than government direct loan.
financial support for SMEs,economic efficiency,OECD,market-orientation,OECD