Forecasting corporate bankruptcy: empirical evidence on Italian data

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of the paper is to investigate several aspects of bankruptcy prediction within both theoretical and empirical frameworks. In particular, it has focused on the comparison of different techniques used to forecast failure through a balanced sample of companies within a geographical area (the Campania region) located in the south of Italy.MethodologyBusiness failure has been one of the most investigated topics within corporate finance and the empirical approach to bankruptcy prediction has recently gained further attention from financial institutions. The aim of corporate failure prediction is to have a methodological approach which discriminates firms with a high probability of future failure from those which are considered to be healthy. Starting from the seminal paper of Altman (1968), many other significant contributions have been subsequently made to this field (Ravi Kumar and Ravi, 2007). This paper's approach is to compare different statistical techniques based on the analysis of financial data for the prediction and diagnosis of the risk of bankruptcy.FindingsThe paper investigates the determinants of bankruptcy in a specific geographical area (Campania region). Empirical evidence on a data‐set of the annual reports of a balanced sample of companies for a given time period has been analyzed. These findings aim to make a contribution to current literature as well as to contribute to the elaboration of efficient prevention and recovery strategies.OriginalityResearchers have tended to restrict the scope of their analysis due to the problems related to the collection and storage of financial data. This study focuses on financial information relating to the area of interest in order to provide a comparative analysis of different forecasting techniques.