In the era of Basel II a powerful tool for bankruptcy prognosis is vital for banks. The tool must be precise but also easily adaptable to the bank's objectives regarding the relation of false acceptances (Type I error) and false rejections (Type II error). We explore the suitability of smooth...

Using a unique large panel of German firms, we examine whether participation in business groups (Konzerns) reduces the sensitivity of investment to cash flow. The main finding is that the investment sensitivity is significantly reduced for small firms. On the other hand, we do not find clear...

Abstract This paper proposes a rating methodology that is based on a non-linear classification method, a support vector machine, and a non-parametric isotonic regression for mapping rating scores into probabilities of default. We also propose a four data set model validation and training...

Abstract Understanding how people make decisions from risky choices has attracted increasing attention of researchers in economics, psychology and neuroscience. While economists try to evaluate individual’s risk preference through mathematical modeling, neuroscientists answer the question by...