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The default risk of firms examined with smooth support vector machines

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  • Härdle, Wolfgang Karl
  • Lee, Yuh-Jye
  • Schäfer, Dorothea
  • Yeh, Yi-Ren

Abstract

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 objections regarding the relation of false acceptances (Type I error) and false rejections (Type II error). We explore the suitability of Smooth Support Vector Machines (SSVM), and investigate how important factors such as selection of appropriate accounting ratios (predictors), length of training period and structure of the training sample influence the precision of prediction. Furthermore we show that oversampling can be employed to gear the tradeoff between error types. Finally, we illustrate graphically how different variants of SSVM can be used jointly to support the decision task of loan officers.

Suggested Citation

  • Härdle, Wolfgang Karl & Lee, Yuh-Jye & Schäfer, Dorothea & Yeh, Yi-Ren, 2008. "The default risk of firms examined with smooth support vector machines," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2008-005, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:sfb649:sfb649dp2008-005
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    1. Härdle, Wolfgang Karl & Moro, Rouslan A. & Schäfer, Dorothea, 2007. "Estimating probabilities of default with support vector machines," Discussion Paper Series 2: Banking and Financial Studies 2007,18, Deutsche Bundesbank.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nehrebecka Natalia, 2018. "Predicting the Default Risk of Companies. Comparison of Credit Scoring Models: Logit Vs Support Vector Machines," Econometrics. Advances in Applied Data Analysis, Sciendo, vol. 22(2), pages 54-73, June.
    2. Natalia Nehrebecka, 2021. "Internal Credit Risk Models and Digital Transformation: What to Prepare for? An Application to Poland," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(Special 3), pages 719-736.
    3. Zhang, Junni L. & Härdle, Wolfgang Karl, 2008. "The bayesian additive classification tree applied to credit risk modelling," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2008-003, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    4. Jan-Henning Trustorff & Paul Konrad & Jens Leker, 2011. "Credit risk prediction using support vector machines," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 565-581, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Insolvency Prognosis; SVMs; Statistical Learning Theory; Non-parametric Classification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation
    • C45 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Neural Networks and Related Topics

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