Multi-Period Corporate Failure Prediction with Stochastic Covariates

46 Pages Posted: 23 Sep 2004 Last revised: 10 Nov 2022

See all articles by Darrell Duffie

Darrell Duffie

Stanford University - Graduate School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Canadian Derivatives Institute

Ke Wang

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

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Date Written: September 2004

Abstract

We provide maximum likelihood estimators of term structures of conditional probabilities of bankruptcy over relatively long time horizons, incorporating the dynamics of firm-specific and macroeconomic covariates. We find evidence in the U.S. industrial machinery and instruments sector, based on over 28,000 firm-quarters of data spanning 1971 to 2001, of significant dependence of the level and shape of the term structure of conditional future bankruptcy probabilities on a firm's distance to default (a volatility-adjusted measure of leverage) and on U.S. personal income growth, among other covariates.Variation in a firm's distance to default has a greater relative effect on the term structure of future failure hazard rates than does a comparatively sized change in U.S. personal income growth, especially at dates more than a year into the future.

Suggested Citation

Duffie, James Darrell and Wang, Ke, Multi-Period Corporate Failure Prediction with Stochastic Covariates (September 2004). NBER Working Paper No. w10743, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=590733

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