Redesigning rating systems has been becoming an important issue for banks and other financial institutions in processing the implementation of the Basel II and III accords. The available data base for this task typically contains only the accepted credit applicants and is thus censored. To...

Stock picking is the field of financial analysis that is of particular interest for many professional investors and researchers. There is a lot of research evidence supporting the fact that stock returns can effectively be forecasted. While various modeling techniques could be employed for stock...

One-factor models claim, that credit quality of a firm is determined by some general factor (e.g. country condition) and individual factors. Further models expand the list of common factors, and introduce, e.g., industry condition as the common factor that drives credit quality correlation. The...

In financial mathematics stock prices are usually modeled directly as a result of supply and demand and under the assumption that dividends are paid continuously. In contrast economic theory gives us the dividend discount model assuming that the stock price equals the present value of its future...

Der Tod macht alle Menschen gleich, dennoch sind nicht alle gleichmäßig betroffen. Unterschiede in der Sterblichkeit aufgrund des sozio-ökonomischen Status sind allgemein bekannt. Aber auch räumliche Disparitäten existieren. Es ist oft von großem Interesse Regionen mit außergewöhnlich...