A multicriteria outranking approach for modeling corporate credit ratings: An application of the Electre Tri-nC method

Corporate credit ratings are widely used in financial services for risk management, investment, and financing decisions. In this study, the use of a recently developed multicriteria outranking approach, namely the Electre Tri-nC method, is examined for constructing internal credit rating models in an expert-based judgmental framework. The models are constructed in a multicriteria classification (sorting) setting and the results are analyzed in terms of their internal properties as well as their deviations from risk rating categories defined by rating agencies (i.e. external benchmarking). A simulation/scenario analysis is conducted to examine the results and performance of the outranking models in relation to their parameters. Empirical results are provided for a sample of European firms rated by three leading rating agencies.     

基于风险环境的企业多层交叉信用评分模型与应用

研究基于风险环境的企多层交叉信用评分模型与信用评级方法,解决同一地区具有多个地域、多个行业和多个企业的企业、行业和地域等具有二级或以上层级结构的企业、行业和地域信用评级问题.定义了地域信用形象,针对同一地域同一行业、不同地域同一行业、同一地域不同行业和不同地域不同行业等4种不同的企业层级结构,分别建立了企业信用评分模型、行业信用评分模型和地域信用评分模型,用以对企业、行业和地域进行信用评级.以某一地区某一行业的集团公司进行项目贷款申请为例,假定该公司同时在"好"、"中"和"差"3个不同的经济发展区域分别建立3个子公司,并分别计算了该公司及其3个子公司在不同地域信用环境影响下的信用评分值,然后综合计算了在不同地域同一行业下的具有多层级结构的公司多级信用评分值,给出公司相应的信用评级结果和银行相应的信贷策略.最后还给出了集团公司具有贷款申请资格的数值条件.该方法对集团公司的信用评级方法以及银行对集团公司的信贷策略及相应决策具有科学参考依据.     

付费主体差异对信用评级结果的影响机制研究

2010年我国首家投资人付费评级机构——中债资信成立,由于我国投资人付费评级机构成立时间不长,目前国内鲜有研究投资人付费与发行人付费评级差异及产生原因的文献,并且国外相关文献主要关注评级方式对某一类债券评级结果的影响,而没有探讨两种评级方式对不同类型债券的影响之间是否存在差别。本文针对投资人付费与发行人付费评级之间的差异,基于声誉效应、竞争机制对发行人付费评级机构迎合选择进行了博弈分析,并分别以信贷资产支持证券和企业债主体的评级数据为样本,对评级差异及其产生原因进行了实证检验。研究结果表明：投资人付费评级结果显著低于发行人付费评级结果;不同付费模式下评级结果的差异受到是否为首次评级和发行人付费评级机构市场份额的影响,发行人付费评级机构对发行人的迎合是产生评级差异的主要原因;两种付费评级方式在企业债主体中的评级差异显著高于在信贷资产支持证券中的评级差异,表明付费评级方式对企业债主体的影响更大。本文较为全面地研究了我国投资人付费与发行付费评级之间的差异,使投资人、监管机构对不同付费模式下的评级结果有更加清晰的认识。     

Improving Default Risk Prediction Using Bayesian Model Uncertainty Techniques

Credit risk is the potential exposure of a creditor to an obligor's failure or refusal to repay the debt in principal or interest. The potential of exposure is measured in terms of probability of default. Many models have been developed to estimate credit risk, with rating agencies dating back to the 19th century. They provide their assessment of probability of default and transition probabilities of various firms in their annual reports. Regulatory capital requirements for credit risk outlined by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision have made it essential for banks and financial institutions to develop sophisticated models in an attempt to measure credit risk with higher accuracy. The Bayesian framework proposed in this article uses the techniques developed in physical sciences and engineering for dealing with model uncertainty and expert accuracy to obtain improved estimates of credit risk and associated uncertainties. The approach uses estimates from one or more rating agencies and incorporates their historical accuracy (past performance data) in estimating future default risk and transition probabilities. Several examples demonstrate that the proposed methodology can assess default probability with accuracy exceeding the estimations of all the individual models. Moreover, the methodology accounts for potentially significant departures from “nominal predictions” due to “upsetting events” such as the 2008 global banking crisis.     

基于模糊神经网络的小微企业信用评级研究

当前小微企业贷款需求日益增加,建立行之有效的小微企业信用评级模型已成为学术界和实务界关注的焦点.本文在阐述模型和构建指标体系的基础上,提出基于模糊神经网络开展小微企业信用评级的研究步骤,以某农村商业银行小微企业信贷微观数据为实证样本,分别进行小型企业和微型企业信用评级检测.实证结果表明,模糊神经网络模型在小微企业信用评级研究中具有较BP神经网络模型更高的检测精度.模型能够实现评级主观性与客观性结合,可对数据进行定性调节和批量处理,且具有明确的计算过程和决策规则,故适用于信用评级研究且具有稳健性.     

基于动态Copula的企业集团信用风险传染效应研究

企业集团成员企业间基于业务关联、技术关联和财务关联的相互联系,构成了企业信用风险传染的重要渠道。金融机构如果缺乏对企业集团成员企业间信用风险传染的管理和防控意识,其后果可能是金融机构信贷资产遭受巨大经济损失。本文基于尾部相依性的视角构建动态协变量Joe-Clayton copula模型,实证分析企业集团成员企业信用风险传染问题。研究发现,信用风险在企业集团成员企业间存在传染效应,且这种信用风险传染效应呈现一定的动态特征;宏观经济因素和微观公司经营能力、财务状况对企业集团内部不同组别子企业间信用风险传染效应的影响从重要性程度和作用方向两个维度上存在差异。     

银行贷款、商业信用融资及我国上市公司的公司治理

本文讨论了银行贷款以及商业信用融资对我国上市公司公司治理的影响.通过对1995到2000年间上市公司CEO更换的研究,我们得到两个结论:第一,在经营业绩为负的公司中,银行贷款与强制性CEO更换存在负向关系,而商业信用融资与强制性CEO更换存在正向关系;第二,在盈利能力一般的公司中,商业信用融资与强制性CEO更换仍为正向关系,但银行贷款与强制性CEO更换却不存在明显的关系.以上结果表明,商业信用融资在CEO强制性更换中起到了积极的作用,改善了上市公司的公司治理,而银行贷款却没有起到相应的作用,甚至有负面的作用.     

A Credit Limit Decision Model for Inventory Floor Planning and Other Extended Trade Credit Arrangements*

This paper analyzes the dealership credit limit problem in terms of the valuation of a Markov process of cash flows with sequential credit decisions over an infinite planning horizon. The formulation distinguishes between the upper bound on credit applicable at the account formation stage and the upper bound applicable to periodic reorders. The result is a closed form solution to the problem which serves as a criterion function for approving or denying credit on a customer-by-customer basis. Data for a sample of manufacturing firms are employed to estimate typical ranges for criterion function parameters. Upper bounds on credit limits are then calculated and graphically presented for median parameter values as well as for values at the 5th and 95th percentiles for the sample data. Finally, an empirical study is conducted of actual trade credit extended by firms. The results support the hypothesis that the variables in the decision model are important determinants of the amount of trade credit outstanding.     

CREDIT CONSTRAINTS AND THE CYCLICALITY OF R&D INVESTMENT: EVIDENCE FROM FRANCE

We use a French firm‐level data set containing 13,000 firms over the period 1994–2004 to analyze the relationship between credit constraints and firms’ R&D behavior over the business cycle. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) R&D investment is countercyclical without credit constraints, but it becomes procyclical as firms face tighter credit constraints; (ii) this result is only observed for firms in sectors that depend more heavily upon external finance, or that are characterized by a low degree of asset tangibility; (iii) in more credit‐constrained firms, R&D investment plummets during recessions but does not increase proportionally during upturns.     

Customers’ Capital Market Information Quality and Suppliers’ Performance

We empirically examine the association between downstream firms’, i.e., customers’ capital market information quality, and the operating performance of upstream firms, i.e., suppliers. Customers’ capital market information quality is measured by the customers’ provision of earnings forecasts, the customers’ reported earnings quality, and the customers’ coverage by financial analysts and credit rating agencies. We hypothesize and find a positive association between customers’ capital market information quality and suppliers’ operating performance measured by the DuPont profitability ratios. The association is stronger for suppliers with higher sales volatility, no order backlogs, customers who are less dependent on their input, and shorter business relation with customers. Collectively, the results suggest that the quality of information provided by the customers to the capital market has a spillover effect in the input market, i.e., helps the suppliers improve their performance.     

CDS and rating announcements: changing signaling during the crisis?

In parallel with the development of credit derivatives market, researchers have begun to explore the relationship between Credit Default Swap (CDS) market and rating events. Many papers, via classical event-study methodology, show that CDS market is able to signal future negative rating events announced by credit rating agencies. In this work, we incorporate into the event-study methodology the ability of Markov switching models in modeling state-dependent means and variances. This approach allows to get over the drawbacks of the classical methodology, which ignores the heteroscedasticity and volatility clustering often affecting financial time series. The proposed methodology is applied to study the reactions of CDS quotes to reviews for downgrading and effective downgradings announced by the three major credit rating agencies (Fitch Ratings, Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s), in order to examine if and to what extent CDS market anticipates announcements related with a company’s creditworthiness. The analysis, focusing mainly on volatility, is performed on two periods, 2004–2006 and 2007–2009, in order to verify whether a change in the signaling power of CDS quotes can be ascribed to recent financial turmoils.     

An extension of the Electre I method for group decision-making under a fuzzy environment

Many real-world decision problems involve conflicting systems of criteria, uncertainty and imprecise information. Some also involve a group of decision makers (DMs) where a reduction of different individual preferences on a given set to a single collective preference is required. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a widely used decision methodology that can improve the quality of group multiple criteria decisions by making the process more explicit, rational and efficient. One family of MCDA models uses what is known as “outranking relations” to rank a set of actions. The Electre method and its derivatives are prominent outranking methods in MCDA. In this study, we propose an alternative fuzzy outranking method by extending the Electre I method to take into account the uncertain, imprecise and linguistic assessments provided by a group of DMs. The contribution of this paper is fivefold: (1) we address the gap in the Electre literature for problems involving conflicting systems of criteria, uncertainty and imprecise information; (2) we extend the Electre I method to take into account the uncertain, imprecise and linguistic assessments; (3) we define outranking relations by pairwise comparisons and use decision graphs to determine which action is preferable, incomparable or indifferent in the fuzzy environment; (4) we show that contrary to the TOPSIS rankings, the Electre approach reveals more useful information including the incomparability among the actions; and (5) we provide a numerical example to elucidate the details of the proposed method.     

现代信用风险度量模型的实证比较与适用性分析

本文通过实证比较分析发现,现代信用风险度量模型对银行贷款的违约率、贷款损失和损失率的预测结果的差异性较大;但信用监测模型和信用风险附加法所预测的经济资本配置比例不仅符合巴塞尔协议对银行贷款经济资本的要求,也略大于实际应该配置的比例,实证表明了它们对度量我国商业银行贷款组合的信用风险具有较好的适用性.此外,本文也充分验证了借款人信用等级的不同,银行贷款经济资本配置的比例会有显著性的差异.     

利益关联、评级资格管制与基金评级公正性

具有基金评级资格的证券公司与证券投资基金之间存在着紧密而有趣的经济关系,一方面,具有基金评级资格的证券公司可以对基金进行评级,另一方面,基金与证券公司之间可能存在利益关联,具体体现在:1)基金要通过证券公司的交易席位进行交易并相应地给予证券公司交易佣金;2)证券公司可能是投资基金的大股东.那么这两种利益关联会损害证券公司作为基金评级机构的公正性吗？研究发现:1)如果证券公司与投资基金之间存在交易佣金关系或股权关系,那么证券公司会显著提高基金的评级等级;2)通过利益关联获得的基金评级对基金未来业绩解释力明显较低;3)2010年实施基金评价资格管制之后,上述两种现象更为明显.综合研究结果表明,利益关联会损害证券公司作为基金评级机构的公正性,且基金评级资格管制可能进一步加剧了利益关联对评级公正性的损害.     

Robust multi-criteria sorting with the outranking preference model and characteristic profiles

We present a new multiple criteria sorting approach that uses characteristic profiles for defining the classes and outranking relation as the preference model, similarly to the Electre Tri-C method. We reformulate the conditions for the worst and best class assignments of Electre Tri-C to increase comprehensibility of the method and interpretability of the results it delivers. Then, we present a disaggregation procedure for inferring the set of outranking models compatible with the given preference information, and use the set in deriving, for each decision alternative, the necessary and possible assignments. Furthermore, we introduce simplified assignment procedures and prove that they maintain a no class jumps-property in the possible assignments. Application of the proposed approach is demonstrated by classifying 40 land zones in 4 classes representing different risk levels.     

Corporate governance and market performance of parent firms following equity carve-out announcements

Using the Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick corporate governance index on a sample of 158 parent firms, this study demonstrates that firms with a superior governance rating have a higher short-term market reaction to carve-out announcements relative to firms with an inferior governance rating. Although the data supports previous evidence regarding negative long-term market reaction that parent firms typically experience following equity carve-outs, the results show that well-governed firms marginally outperform others. The findings also confirm that the dynamic effects related to improvements in corporate governance positively affect the long-term market outcome of parent firms; this relation is more significant in well-governed parent firms. Finally, the study shows evidence that corporate governance helps mitigate the agency problems related to the financing hypothesis, which results in better short and long-term market reactions following carve-out announcements.     

External audit and bankruptcy prediction

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between external auditor characteristics and the likelihood of bankruptcy. We use a sample of US public companies to analyse whether auditor attributes are associated with default. We also test whether the inclusion of such attributes in bankruptcy prediction models improves their predictive ability. We find that firms audited by industry-expert auditors, large audit firms and long-tenured auditors are less likely to default. Firms with higher audit fees are more likely to default. Our results also show that the inclusion of auditor attributes significantly increases the predictive ability of bankruptcy prediction models. This paper contributes to the literature about auditing and bankruptcy prediction. Our results suggest that the auditor attributes can provide predictive signals concerning a default risk and that an external audit can play a relevant role in early warnings of financial distress. Our study also suggests that bankruptcy prediction models can become more effective if they are complemented with audit data. Our results are of interest to market participants, auditors, regulating authorities, banks and other financial institutions that are interested in credit risk assessment.     

信贷扭曲下系统性风险形成和“双支柱”政策协调问题研究——基于异质性企业的视角

我国国有企业和私营企业在信贷获取和生产效率上的差异性会扭曲信贷资源配置,进而抬高宏观杠杆率,增加系统性风险。本文基于抵押约束机制构建了包含异质性企业的动态随机一般均衡模型,从理论上分析了由企业信贷扭曲引起的系统性风险形成机制,并探讨了货币政策和宏观审慎政策"双支柱"调控的协调问题。研究发现：在异质性企业环境下,宏观审慎政策通过减缓信贷市场顺周期行为,抑制信贷规模过度膨胀,起到降低宏观杠杆率、防范系统性风险的作用,并显著改善社会福利损失,为货币政策制定创造更多空间;货币政策与宏观审慎政策"双支柱"的调控框架仅减缓了抵押约束机制对经济周期的放大效应,未解决异质性企业对经济结构的扭曲问题。因此,深化供给侧结构性改革,提高国有企业市场竞争力和自负盈亏能力,充分发挥市场对资源的配置作用,是建立"去杠杆"长效机制、提高金融韧性以形成能够内生消化风险的市场环境的关键所在。     

基于指标体系违约鉴别能力最大的小企业债信评级体系及实证

债信评级是通过评级体系确定债务违约的可能性大小。根据单个指标违约鉴别能力大小的遴选来建立评级指标体系看上去似乎是一个不错的选择，但事实并非如此。因为用违约鉴别能力强的单个指标组成的一组指标，其指标体系的违约鉴别能力却不一定强。本研究基于一组指标构成的指标体系的违约鉴别能力最大标准，构建了小企业债信评级体系。创新与特色：一是通过将单个违约鉴别力最强的指标组成的指标体系的b值，与本文建立的整体违约鉴别力最大的指标体系的b值对比，证明了单个违约鉴别力强的指标，组合起来的体系违约鉴别力不一定也强。在构建债信评级指标体系时，应关注指标体系整体的违约鉴别力，而非单个指标的违约鉴别力。二是在由n和n-1个指标构成的两组指标中，根据两组指标体系的非违约客户的综合得分S_i越高，则S_i偏离非违约状态（y_i=0）的距离越大；违约客户的综合得分S_i越低，S_i偏离违约状态（y_i=1）的距离越大；则布莱尔分数b越大，指标体系鉴别力越强的思路来遴选违约鉴别能力最大、而不是单个指标违约鉴别能力最大的一组指标体系，确保了评级体系具有最大的违约鉴别能力。三是在相关系数大于阈值的一对指标中，删除违约鉴别能力b值小、即区分违约状态能力弱的指标，既避免了指标体系的信息冗余、又避免了误删区分违约状态能力强的指标。实证表明：一是由于指标间的相互影响，单个违约鉴别力强的指标，组合起来的体系违约鉴别力不一定也强。二是非财务指标在小企业债信评级中的地位更加重要。     

产品市场竞争优势、资本结构与商业信用支持——基于中国上市公司的实证研究

以2005年-2013年中国上市公司为样本,探讨产品市场竞争优势的含义及度量方法,产品市场竞争优势对企业资本结构与商业信用支持的影响,以及宏观、行业和微观因素如何发挥调节作用.研究发现:第一,产品市场竞争优势有助于降低企业的负债水平,并刺激企业对上下游企业提供更多的商业信用支持;第二,在经济越发达的地区、竞争强度越弱的行业,以及民营控股上市公司中,产品市场竞争优势会进一步降低企业的负债水平,同时加强其对上下游企业的商业信用支持.研究结论为从理论上更加全面和准确地理解产品市场竞争优势与企业资本结构和商业信用支持的关系提供了新的科学依据.