Entrepreneurs are often faced with problems regarding start-up financing. But compared to novice entrepreneurs, experienced entrepreneurs should have both more knowledge and better contacts, which should potentially reduce the occurrence of problems and affect finance composition. However,...

The analysis in this paper gives attention to effects on firm survival which come from entrepreneurial experience. It is likely that different kinds of experience result in different firm developments and therefore in different types of firm exit. Particular emphasis is placed upon the effects...

Entrepreneurs are often faced with problems regarding start-up financing. But compared to novice entrepreneurs, experienced entrepreneurs should have both more knowledge and better contacts, which should potentially reduce the occurrence of problems and affect finance composition. However,...

During the last years more and more discussions came up about the contribution of technology-oriented and technology-intensive industries for the economic development and employment. One reason for these contradictory evaluations of technology-intensive industries can be attributed to different...

In this paper we discuss determinants of firm survival and growth in Germany within its pre-1989 boundaries. We develop our central hypotheses on the basis of a simple theoretical model describing the self-selection of heterogeneous entrepreneurs into particular legal forms, and the implications...

This paper explores how different reasons for business closure impact the probability that financial loss will be suffered by creditors. Using German small business data, the study finds that business closure due to financial problems is strongly correlated with a likelihood of financial loss....

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...

In many economic applications it is desirable to make future predictions about the financial status of a company. The focus of predictions is mainly if a company will default or not. A support vector machine (SVM) is one learning method which uses historical data to establish a classification...