Econometric analyses in the happiness literature typically use subjective well-being (SWB) data to compare the mean of observed or latent happiness across samples. Recent critiques show that com-paring the mean of ordinal data is only valid under strong assumptions that are usually rejected by...

In this paper we develop statistical models for bankruptcy prediction of Italian firms in the limited liability sector, using annual balance sheet information. Several issues involved in default risk analysis are investigated, such as the structure of the data-base, the sampling procedure and...

Over the last four decades, bankruptcy prediction has given rise to an extensive body of literature, the aim of which was to assess the conditions under which forecasting models perform effectively. Of all the parameters that may influence model accuracy, one has rarely been discussed: the...

Of the methods used to build bankruptcy prediction models in the last twenty years, neural networks are among the most challenging. Despite the characteristics of neural networks, most of the research done until now has not taken them into consideration for building financial failure models, nor...

Factor models have been applied extensively for forecasting when high dimensional datasets are available. In this case, the number of variables can be very large. For instance, usual dynamic factor models in central banks handle over 100 variables. However, there is a growing body of the...