Financial crises and bank failures: a review of prediction methods

In this article we analyze financial and economic circumstances associated with the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and the global financial turmoil that has led to severe crises in many countries. We suggest that the level of cross-border holdings of long-term securities between the United States and the rest of the world may indicate a direct link between the turmoil in the securitized market originated in the United States and that in other countries. We provide a summary of empirical results obtained in several Economics and Operations Research papers that attempt to explain, predict, or suggest remedies for financial crises or banking defaults; we also extensively outline the methodologies used in them. The intent of this article is to promote future empirical research for preventing financial crises.Subprime mortgage ; Financial crises

Implementación de una herramienta de análisis de riesgo de crédito basado en el modelo de rating de crédito, algoritmos genéticos y clustering jerárquico aglomerativo

Propone un método para generar modelos de clasificación de riesgo de crédito de acuerdo a la metodología de rating de crédito. La implementación de esta metodología requiere construir dos grandes bloques de análisis: (1) la construcción de un modelo de puntuaciones, y (2) la construcción de un modelo de agrupación de clases de riesgo. Para construir el modelo de rating, este trabajo propone el uso de dos técnicas de la inteligencia artificial: (1) el uso de algoritmos genéticos para determinar el modelo de puntuaciones óptimo, y (2) el uso de clustering jerárquico aglomerativo para la segmentación de los grupos de riesgo. Los resultados de la experimentación mostraron que la presente propuesta obtiene un buen indicador de poder de predicción (58.9%). Además, se comparó este modelo con el modelo de regresión logística (un conocido método de estimación estadística), teniendo la propuesta actual un mejor desempeño que el modelo logístico. Se concluye que las técnicas de inteligencia artificial usadas en este trabajo muestran un buen resultado para generar un modelo de rating, y tienen como ventaja la fácil interpretación de sus resultados por un experto humano.Tesi

Flight-to-Quality phenomenon as a source of financial instability

Doutoramento em EconomiaA general theoretical framework is proposed to analyse Flight-to-Quality events, defined as a mass investment migration from risky to safe assets. The model consists of only two asset classes, risky and safe. The framework is applied to Flights-to-Quality from emerging market public debt to U.S. treasuries, in the period 1998-2010. An alarm signal system is designed to warn of upcoming Flights-to-Quality and their terminations, and is applied: (i) to delimiting hypothetical Flights-to-Quality on an ex-ante basis, which are compared with historically observed episodes, to test the quality of the alarm signals; (ii) to elaborate dynamic interest rate risk hedge strategies, characterized by higher returns and lower volatility in comparison with statically hedged investments. The proposed framework potentially allows for improving the timeliness of financial policies, which can be triggered by the alarm signals. It can also be a useful tool for defining adequate policies to be implemented acting either on an insufficient supply of the safe assets or on a decreasing demand for the risky investments, thus contributing to a more stable economic environment.Propõe-se uma abordagem teórica para análise de eventos Flight-to-Quality, definidos como a migração em massa de investimentos em, activos com risco para investimentos em activos sem risco. O modelo considera apenas dois tipos de activos, com e sem risco. A abordagem é aplicada a eventos Flight-to-Quality da dívida pública de mercados emergentes para dívida pública norte-americana, no período 1998-2010. É desenhado um sistema de sinais de alerta para emitir sinais de aviso relativos ao início e ao término dos eventos Flight-to-Quality, o qual é utilizado para: (i) a identificação ex-ante (hipotética) dos eventos, os quais são comparados com os eventos históricos observados, para testar a qualidade dos sinais gerados; (ii) para elaborar estratégias dinâmicas de cobertura de risco da taxa de juro, que asseguram rendimentos mais elevados e menor volatilidade que estratégias de cobertura de risco estáticas. A abordagem proposta permite melhorar o tempo de resposta das políticas financeiras, as quais podem ser despoletadas pelos sinais de alarme. E pode também ser um instrumento útil para a definição de políticas, seja para correcção de uma oferta insuficiente de activos sem risco ou de uma procura insuficiente pelos activos com risco, contribuindo assim para um ambiente económico mais estável

The drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility in the supply chain. A case study.

Purpose: The paper studies the way in which a SME integrates CSR into its corporate strategy, the practices it puts in place and how its CSR strategies reflect on its suppliers and customers relations. Methodology/Research limitations: A qualitative case study methodology is used. The use of a single case study limits the generalizing capacity of these findings. Findings: The entrepreneur’s ethical beliefs and value system play a fundamental role in shaping sustainable corporate strategy. Furthermore, the type of competitive strategy selected based on innovation, quality and responsibility clearly emerges both in terms of well defined management procedures and supply chain relations as a whole aimed at involving partners in the process of sustainable innovation. Originality/value: The paper presents a SME that has devised an original innovative business model. The study pivots on the issues of innovation and eco-sustainability in a context of drivers for CRS and business ethics. These values are considered fundamental at International level; the United Nations has declared 2011 the “International Year of Forestry”

A novel application of data envelopment analysis and production trade-offs for efficiency evaluation of banking institutions : the case for Pakistan

A growing body of empirical literature has attempted to measure the efficiency of banking sector using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) by focusing on different aspects of banking services. However, standard DEA models often fail to sufficiently discriminate between efficiency scores of banks particularly with small sample size. Moreover, sometimes knowledge about different banking operations is available that needs to be incorporated in the evaluation method to assess their impact on the performance of banks. This research deals with the efficiency evaluation of banking sector through DEA based on additional information about multiple banking operations without which efficiency is generally overestimated. The main objective of this thesis is to develop a better informed DEA model that is capable of incorporating additional information about different bank specific characteristics by overcoming the problem of poor discrimination. For this purpose, the current study has proposed a novel methodological integration of DEA with production trade-offs in banking context and named it “DEATOB Framework”. This framework is universal in nature and can be applied to banking sectors of other countries. The study also aims to provide the empirical application of DEATOB Framework for which a sample of 29 commercial banks of Pakistan is selected. The results indicate that this framework evaluates banks on the basis of additional characteristics and provides better discrimination between good and bad performers as compared to the standard DEA model. The final objective is to extend the proposed framework to other banking models. For this purpose, the profitability model is chosen considering the profit maximization goal of banks and a separate PDEATOB Framework is developed. An empirical application of this framework is also provided to demonstrate its workability. This thesis also provides an insight on scale efficiency and relationship of efficiency with the banks size and ownership after application of the proposed frameworks