In the European Union, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 99% of all businesses and contribute to more than half of the total value-added. In this paper, we develop distress prediction models for SMEs using a dataset from eight European countries over the period 2000-2009. We...

While the empirical literature has often documented a “default anomaly”, i.e. a negative relation between default risk and stock returns, standard theory suggests that default risk should be priced in the cross-section. In this paper, we provide an explanation for this apparent puzzle using...

We develop distress prediction models for non-financial small and medium enterprises (SMEs) using a dataset from eight European countries over the period 2000-2009. We examine idiosyncratic and systematic covariates and find that macro conditions and bankruptcy codes add predictive power to our...

We develop distress prediction models for non-financial small and medium enterprises (SMEs) using a dataset from eight European countries over the period 2000-2009. We examine idiosyncratic and systematic covariates and find that macro conditions and bankruptcy codes add predictive power to our...