Bankruptcy Prediction with Industry Effects

Abstract This paper investigates the forecasting accuracy of bankruptcy hazard rate models for U.S. companies over the time period 1962–1999 using both yearly and monthly observation intervals. The contribution of this paper is multiple-fold. One, using an expanded bankruptcy database we validate the superior forecasting performance of Shumway's (2001) model as opposed to Altman (1968) and Zmijewski (1984). Two, we demonstrate the importance of including industry effects in hazard rate estimation. Industry groupings are shown to significantly affect both the intercept and slope coefficients in the forecasting equations. Three, we extend the hazard rate model to apply to financial firms and monthly observation…