IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfor/v38y2022i3p1054-1070.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forecasting corporate default risk in China

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Xuan
  • Zhao, Yang
  • Yao, Xiao

Abstract

Default risk prediction can not only provide forward-looking and timely risk measures for regulators and investors, but also improve the stability of the financial system. However, the determinants of corporate default risk in China have not been well-identified. An empirical analysis was conducted using a unique dataset of default events in the Chinese market to fill this gap. First, we demonstrated that the default probability estimated by a structural model, which is widely used in the literature, do not fully reveal the default risk of firms in China. Second, we classified default events into minor and major defaults for empirical analysis. We found that firms that survive minor defaults behave differently from other bankrupt firms. Our results suggest that the determinants of corporate default risk in China and the United States differ. We also found that a firm’s continued increase in cash holdings is one of the most important signs of default. Overall, our study significantly improves the accuracy of forecasting corporate default risk in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Xuan & Zhao, Yang & Yao, Xiao, 2022. "Forecasting corporate default risk in China," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1054-1070.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:38:y:2022:i:3:p:1054-1070
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2021.04.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207021000819
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2021.04.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bakhtiari, Sasan, 2017. "Corporate credit ratings: Selection on size or productivity?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 84-101.
    2. Abinzano, Isabel & Gonzalez-Urteaga, Ana & Muga, Luis & Sanchez, Santiago, 2020. "Performance of default-risk measures: the sample matters," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    3. Francisco J. Buera & Joseph P. Kaboski & Yongseok Shin, 2011. "Finance and Development: A Tale of Two Sectors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1964-2002, August.
    4. Shi, Baofeng & Chi, Guotai & Li, Weiping, 2020. "Exploring the mismatch between credit ratings and loss-given-default: A credit risk approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 420-428.
    5. Duffie, Darrell & Saita, Leandro & Wang, Ke, 2007. "Multi-period corporate default prediction with stochastic covariates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 635-665, March.
    6. Carling, Kenneth & Jacobson, Tor & Linde, Jesper & Roszbach, Kasper, 2007. "Corporate credit risk modeling and the macroeconomy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 845-868, March.
    7. Darrell Duffie & Andreas Eckner & Guillaume Horel & Leandro Saita, 2009. "Frailty Correlated Default," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2089-2123, October.
    8. Tian, Shaonan & Yu, Yan, 2017. "Financial ratios and bankruptcy predictions: An international evidence," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 510-526.
    9. John Y. Campbell & Jens Hilscher & Jan Szilagyi, 2008. "In Search of Distress Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2899-2939, December.
    10. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    11. Caggiano, Giovanni & Calice, Pietro & Leonida, Leone, 2014. "Early warning systems and systemic banking crises in low income countries: A multinomial logit approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 258-269.
    12. Drehmann, Mathias & Juselius, Mikael, 2014. "Evaluating early warning indicators of banking crises: Satisfying policy requirements," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 759-780.
    13. Liu, Chunyan & Uchida, Konari & Yang, Yufeng, 2012. "Corporate governance and firm value during the global financial crisis: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 70-80.
    14. Duan, Jin-Chuan & Sun, Jie & Wang, Tao, 2012. "Multiperiod corporate default prediction—A forward intensity approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 170(1), pages 191-209.
    15. Dendramis, Y. & Tzavalis, E. & Varthalitis, P. & Athanasiou, E., 2020. "Predicting default risk under asymmetric binary link functions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 1039-1056.
    16. Beaver, Wh, 1966. "Financial Ratios As Predictors Of Failure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4, pages 71-111.
    17. Zhang, Xuan & Ouyang, Ruolan & Liu, Ding & Xu, Liao, 2020. "Determinants of corporate default risk in China: The role of financial constraints," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 87-98.
    18. Glick, Reuven & Hutchison, Michael, 2013. "China's financial linkages with Asia and the global financial crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 186-206.
    19. Figlewski, Stephen & Frydman, Halina & Liang, Weijian, 2012. "Modeling the effect of macroeconomic factors on corporate default and credit rating transitions," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 87-105.
    20. Yao, Yanzhen & Li, Jianping & Zhu, Xiaoqian & Wei, Lu, 2017. "Expected default based score for identifying systemically important banks," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 589-600.
    21. Jin-Chuan Duan & Tao Wang, 2012. "Measuring Distance-to-Default for Financial and Non-Financial Firms," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Risk Management Institute, Singapore (ed.), Global Credit Review, chapter 6, pages 95-108, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    22. Sudheer Chava & Robert A. Jarrow, 2008. "Bankruptcy Prediction with Industry Effects," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Derivatives Pricing Selected Works of Robert Jarrow, chapter 21, pages 517-549, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    23. Lu Han & Ruihuan Ge, 2017. "Wavelets Analysis on Structural Model for Default Prediction," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 50(1), pages 111-140, June.
    24. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    25. Antunes, António & Bonfim, Diana & Monteiro, Nuno & Rodrigues, Paulo M.M., 2018. "Forecasting banking crises with dynamic panel probit models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 249-275.
    26. Cynthia G. McDonald & Linda M. Van De Gucht, 1999. "High-Yield Bond Default And Call Risks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 409-419, August.
    27. Beaver, Wh, 1968. "Market Prices, Financial Ratios, And Prediction Of Failure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 179-192.
    28. Orth, Walter, 2013. "Multi-period credit default prediction with time-varying covariates," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 214-222.
    29. Kaposty, Florian & Kriebel, Johannes & Löderbusch, Matthias, 2020. "Predicting loss given default in leasing: A closer look at models and variable selection," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 248-266.
    30. Shumway, Tyler, 2001. "Forecasting Bankruptcy More Accurately: A Simple Hazard Model," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(1), pages 101-124, January.
    31. Jin-Chuan Duan & Tao Wang, 2012. "Measuring Distance-to-Default for Financial and Non-Financial Firms," Global Credit Review (GCR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(01), pages 95-108.
    32. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy: A Discriminant Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-194, March.
    33. Ohlson, Ja, 1980. "Financial Ratios And The Probabilistic Prediction Of Bankruptcy," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 109-131.
    34. Carmona, Pedro & Climent, Francisco & Momparler, Alexandre, 2019. "Predicting failure in the U.S. banking sector: An extreme gradient boosting approach," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 304-323.
    35. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Tyler Shumway, 2008. "Forecasting Default with the Merton Distance to Default Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1339-1369, May.
    36. Yan, Alice Xie & Shi, Jian & Wu, Chunchi, 2008. "Do macroeconomic variables matter for pricing default risk?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 279-291.
    37. Song, Zhuo-lin & Zhang, Xiao-mei, 2018. "Lending technology and credit risk under different types of loans to SMEs: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 43-69.
    38. Beaver, Wh, 1966. "Financial Ratios As Predictors Of Failure - Reply," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4, pages 123-127.
    39. Jin‐Chuan Duan, 1994. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation Using Price Data Of The Derivative Contract," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(2), pages 155-167, April.
    40. Chan, Kenneth S. & Dang, Vinh Q.T. & Yan, Isabel K.M., 2012. "Financial reform and financing constraints: Some evidence from listed Chinese firms," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 482-497.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aggarwal, Nidhi & Singh, Manish K. & Thomas, Susan, 2023. "Do decreases in Distance-to-Default predict rating downgrades?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    2. Yuetong Zhao & Deqin Lin, 2023. "Prediction of Micro- and Small-Sized Enterprise Default Risk Based on a Logistic Model: Evidence from a Bank of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-13, February.
    3. Qin, Yi & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Cifuentes-Faura, Javier & Zhong, Kaiyang, 2023. "Strong financial regulation and corporate bankruptcy risk in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PB).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Xuan & Ouyang, Ruolan & Liu, Ding & Xu, Liao, 2020. "Determinants of corporate default risk in China: The role of financial constraints," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 87-98.
    2. Duan, Jin-Chuan & Kim, Baeho & Kim, Woojin & Shin, Donghwa, 2018. "Default probabilities of privately held firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 235-250.
    3. Duan, Jin-Chuan & Sun, Jie & Wang, Tao, 2012. "Multiperiod corporate default prediction—A forward intensity approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 170(1), pages 191-209.
    4. Jens Hilscher & Mungo Wilson, 2017. "Credit Ratings and Credit Risk: Is One Measure Enough?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3414-3437, October.
    5. Nguyen, Ha, 2023. "An empirical application of Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo to frailty correlated default models," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 103-121.
    6. Ha Nguyen, 2023. "Particle MCMC in forecasting frailty correlated default models with expert opinion," Papers 2304.11586, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    7. Elizabeth Gutierrez & Jake Krupa & Miguel Minutti-Meza & Maria Vulcheva, 2020. "Do going concern opinions provide incremental information to predict corporate defaults?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 1344-1381, December.
    8. Ahsan Habib & Mabel D' Costa & Hedy Jiaying Huang & Md. Borhan Uddin Bhuiyan & Li Sun, 2020. "Determinants and consequences of financial distress: review of the empirical literature," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(S1), pages 1023-1075, April.
    9. Anand Deo & Sandeep Juneja, 2021. "Credit Risk: Simple Closed-Form Approximate Maximum Likelihood Estimator," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(2), pages 361-379, March.
    10. Paulo V. Carvalho & José D. Curto & Rodrigo Primor, 2022. "Macroeconomic determinants of credit risk: Evidence from the Eurozone," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 2054-2072, April.
    11. Anand Deo & Sandeep Juneja, 2019. "Credit Risk: Simple Closed Form Approximate Maximum Likelihood Estimator," Papers 1912.12611, arXiv.org.
    12. Hyeongjun Kim & Hoon Cho & Doojin Ryu, 2020. "Corporate Default Predictions Using Machine Learning: Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-11, August.
    13. Chan, Steven & Han, Gaofeng & Zhang, Wenlang, 2016. "How strong are the linkages between real estate and other sectors in China?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 52-72.
    14. Jens Hilscher & Mungo Wilson, 2011. "Credit ratings and credit risk," Working Papers 31, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    15. Tomasz Berent & Radosław Rejman, 2021. "Bankruptcy Prediction with a Doubly Stochastic Poisson Forward Intensity Model and Low-Quality Data," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-24, December.
    16. Cathcart, Lara & Dufour, Alfonso & Rossi, Ludovico & Varotto, Simone, 2020. "The differential impact of leverage on the default risk of small and large firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    17. Zhou, Fanyin & Fu, Lijun & Li, Zhiyong & Xu, Jiawei, 2022. "The recurrence of financial distress: A survival analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1100-1115.
    18. Giesecke, Kay & Longstaff, Francis A. & Schaefer, Stephen & Strebulaev, Ilya, 2011. "Corporate bond default risk: A 150-year perspective," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 233-250.
    19. Ilyes Abid & Farid Mkaouar & Olfa Kaabia, 2018. "Dynamic analysis of the forecasting bankruptcy under presence of unobserved heterogeneity," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 262(2), pages 241-256, March.
    20. Duffie, Darrell & Saita, Leandro & Wang, Ke, 2007. "Multi-period corporate default prediction with stochastic covariates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 635-665, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:38:y:2022:i:3:p:1054-1070. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijforecast .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.