We estimate probabilities of bankruptcy for 5,784 industrial firms in the period 1988-2002 in a model where common equity is viewed as a down-and-out barrier option on the firm's assets. Asset values and volatilities as well as firm-specific bankruptcy barriers are simultaneously backed out from...

Financial institutions and academic researchers utilize bankruptcy prediction models to assess distress risk. However, predicting default can be problematic since (i) few firms actually experience default in any one year, (ii) the lag between practical and actual default can vary significantly,...

In this paper, we evaluate an alternative approach for bankruptcy prediction that measures the financial healthiness of firms that have coupon-paying debts. The approach is based on the framework of Leland and Toft (1996), which is an extension of a widely-used model; the Black-Scholes-Merton...

There have been 128 defaults among U.S. CDS reference entities between 2001 and 2020. Within this sample, the five-year CDS spread is a significant predictor of corporate default in models with equity market covariates and firm attributes. This finding holds for forecast horizons up to 12...

This paper proposes a rating methodology that is based on a non-linear classification method, the support vector machine, and a non-parametric technique for mapping rating scores into probabilities of default. We give an introduction to underlying statistical models and represent the results of...

Ziel des vorliegenden Diskussionspapiers ist es, einen Beitrag zur Verbesserung der Vergleichbarkeit der Schätzgüteergebnisse von Insolvenzprognosestudien zu leisten. Hierzu werden zunächst in der Literatur verwendete kategoriale, ordinale und kardinale Schätzgütemaße vorgestellt. Es wird...

This article presents a financial scoring model estimated on Czech corporate accounting data. Seven financial indicators capable of explaining business failure at a 1-year prediction horizon are identified. Using the model estimated in this way, an aggregate indicator of the creditworthiness of...

Die Prognose der Insolvenzgefährdung von Unternehmen anhand statistischer Methodik war und ist eine bedeutende Aufgabe empirischer Forschung. Eine Möglichkeit der Beurteilung der finanziellen bzw. wirtschaftlichen Verfassung von Unternehmen stellt die sog. externe Bilanzanalyse anhand...

Eine große Herausforderung der multivariablen Analyse mit bilanziellen Kennzahlen besteht in der Identifikation derjenigen Kennzahlen, die zur besten Modellperformance führen und dabei möglichst leicht interpretierbar und intuitiv bleiben. Die Menge der in Frage kommenden Kennzahlen ist in...

A firm's current leverage ratio is one of the core characteristics of credit quality used in statistical default prediction models. Based on the capital structure literature, which shows that leverage is mean-reverting to a target leverage, we forecast future leverage ratios and include them in...