Why Small Businesses Aren't Innovative

Everyone says small businesses are dynamic, market-shaking, job creators. But new evidence suggests that's not true.

By Annie Lowrey| 

Posted Monday, Sept. 19, 2011, at 7:15 AM ET

 A year ago, President Barack Obama approved the Small Business Jobs Act, which cut taxes and expanded loan programs for tens of thousands of small companies. Signing the bill into law, he gave a speech that could have come out of the mouth of any Washington politician: lauding the country's "entrepreneurs," the "basement inventor[s]" designing revolutionary new products and creating most of the country's new jobs.