ABSTRACT
In this chapter we argue that the 1930s saw the emergence of enterprise policymaking and consideration of small businesses as a distinct grouping. In particular, the crises of the 1920s and early 1930s led to the development of one of the central recurring themes in enterprise policymaking: access to finance. After setting out the political context of the time, we therefore focus in detail on an analysis of the identification of the ‘Macmillan gap’ in finance for small businesses and the policies that resulted. We discuss Credit for Industry as an example of the type of response that would set some of the patterns for future interventions including what was arguably the most prominent result of enterprise policymaking in the first half of the twentieth century. We then discuss in detail the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, a long run organization seeking to address the finance problems of small firms.
