In the era of Basel II a powerful tool for bankruptcy prognosis isvital for banks. The tool must be precise but also easily adaptable tothe bank's objections regarding the relation of false acceptances (TypeI error) and false rejections (Type II error). We explore the suitabil-ity of Smooth...

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...

The purpose of this work is to introduce one of the most promising among recentlydeveloped statistical techniques – the support vector machine (SVM) –to corporate bankruptcy analysis. An SVM is implemented for analysing suchpredictors as financial ratios. A method of adapting it to default...

Informed capital is a crucial ingredient to a well-functioning market for start-upfinance, especially in times of difficult market conditions. For bank-basedsystems, the question regarding which investors actually supply informed capitalhas not yet been answered. To fill this gap, we conduct a...

In this paper we analyze how a firm might protect quasi-rents in an environmentof imperfect capital markets, where switching lenders is costly to the borrower, andcontracts are incomplete. As switching costs make the firm vulnerable to ex-postexploitation, it may want to diversify lending in...

What is the role of collateral and restructuring know how in a framework of debt renegotiation and a priori private information? We show that the result in the literature according to which debt renegotiation implies that the high-risk borrower is more inclined to pledge collateral than the...