Credit Risk and Survival Prospects of Female businesses (SMEs) in Scotland, and their response to economic shocks

苏格兰女性企业 (SME) 的信用风险和生存前景及其对经济冲击的反应

• 批准号: 2561058
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2561058
• 关键词: Credit; Risk; Survival; Prospects; Female

My research project aims to model the credit risk profile of female-owned/controlled Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Scotland, and to predict the impact of economic shocks on their credit worthiness. The central hypothesis is that, due to gender differences, female SMEs have a more adverse credit risk profile (i.e. greater probability of default), and are less likely to survive in periods of economic instability. However, this hypothesis has never been tested empirically for female-SMEs in Scotland.The key research questions to be addressed, therefore, are: Do female SMEs have a more adverse credit risk profile than males? Do existing theories of firm failure help to identify the key drivers that predict default probability for female SMEs? Are female SMEs more likely to fail following macro-economic 'shocks'? The outcomes of the project will provide insights into the measures needed to improve the survival chances of female-led SMEs and their creditworthiness. They contribute primarily to the field of Operational Research/Management Science. Operational Research uses quantitative analysis as a basis for management decision making. One of the most successful applications has been its use in the credit risk assessment of consumers and SMEs, with credit scoring methodologies used to build predictive models to assess borrowers' credit worthiness, measured by probability of default (PD). It is important to note that the fundamental purpose is prediction, based on discrimination and identifying covariates that improve prediction, as opposed to identifying and confirming causal relationships, which is more typically found in Finance e.g. in credit risk models for larger corporate firms. In Scotland, 99.8% of 340,000 businesses are SMEs. Female-owned businesses account for over 460k jobs (26.7% private sector employment) (FSB, 2018). However, the Small Business Survey Scotland (2018) reported that only 15% SMEs with employees were female-led, down 6% from 2017.There is currently a lack of academic research that models the relative 'success' of female SMEs, and specifically their survival over time. There are specific gaps in the academic literature in relation to the credit risk profile of SMEs run by women in Scotland, the risk determinants and drivers, and no research on how their credit worthiness is impacted by changes in macro-economic conditions. This leads to a lack of ability to predict how female SMEs will be impacted by future economic shocks.One of the limitations of using predictive credit models is the current lack of theoretical framework to identify relevant drivers of PD, as the value of the models rests with their ability to predict, rather than explain causality. However, there is an extensive body of academic research that has developed theories on the causes of firm failure e.g. Resource-dependence theory (Sheppard, 1995); Liability of newness hypothesis (Yang & Aldrich, 2017), and therefore this body of theory will be used as a starting point to identify key variables for the model, although emphasis will still remain on predictive ability.Psychological attributes theory suggests that women may typically be more risk averse, less competitive and less confident than men, and research has tested this in business/financial settings (e.g Charness & Gneezy, 2012; Kamas & Preston, 2012; Fisher & Yao, 2017). Even when research suggests it is more context, than gender attributes, that lead to observed differences, some of this contextual difference may be explained by human capital theory, whereby female entrepreneurs may have had less time to develop their skills/experience e.g. time off to start a family, or other social barriers.This leads to a hypothesis that female SMEs may be less 'credit-worthy' and that they will suffer more in the event of economic shocks, where ability to compete may be key to survival. However, this hypothesis is yet to be tested with empirical research.

我的研究项目旨在模拟苏格兰女性拥有/控制的中小企业（SMEs）的信用风险状况，并预测经济冲击对其信用价值的影响。核心假设是，由于性别差异，女性中小企业的信贷风险状况更为不利（即违约的可能性更大），在经济不稳定时期生存的可能性更小。然而，这一假设从来没有经过实证检验的女性中小企业在Scotland.的关键研究问题，因此，要解决的是：女性中小企业有一个更不利的信贷风险比男性？现有的企业失败理论是否有助于确定预测女性中小企业违约概率的关键驱动因素？在宏观经济“冲击”之后，女性中小企业是否更有可能倒闭？该项目的成果将使人们深入了解为改善女性主导的中小企业的生存机会及其信誉所需采取的措施。他们主要贡献于运筹学/管理科学领域。运筹学使用定量分析作为管理决策的基础。最成功的应用之一是将其用于消费者和中小企业的信贷风险评估，使用信贷评分方法建立预测模型，以评估借款人的信用价值，按违约概率衡量。重要的是要注意，基本目的是预测，基于歧视和识别改善预测的协变量，而不是识别和确认因果关系，这在金融中更常见，例如在大型公司的信用风险模型中。在苏格兰，34万家企业中有99.8%是中小企业。女性拥有的企业提供了超过46万个工作岗位（26.7%的私营部门就业）（FSB，2018）。然而，苏格兰小企业调查（2018年）报告称，只有15%的中小企业员工是女性领导的，比2017年下降了6%。在苏格兰妇女经营的中小企业的信贷风险状况、风险决定因素和驱动因素方面，学术文献存在具体差距，而且没有研究宏观经济条件变化如何影响其信贷价值。这导致无法预测女性中小企业将如何受到未来经济冲击的影响。使用预测性信贷模型的局限性之一是目前缺乏理论框架来确定PD的相关驱动因素，因为模型的价值在于它们的预测能力，而不是解释因果关系。然而，有大量的学术研究已经发展出了关于企业失败原因的理论，例如资源依赖理论（Sheppard，1995）;新颖性假设的可靠性（Yang & Aldrich，2017），因此这一理论体系将被用作确定模型关键变量的起点，尽管重点仍将放在预测能力上。心理属性理论表明，女性可能通常比男性更厌恶风险，更缺乏竞争力和自信，研究已经在商业/金融环境中测试了这一点（例如Charness & Gneezy，2012; Kamas &普雷斯顿，2012; Fisher & Yao，2017）。即使研究表明，导致所观察到的差异的更多是背景因素，而不是性别因素，但这种背景差异中的一些可能可以用人力资本理论来解释，即女企业家可能没有太多时间来发展自己的技能/经验，例如没有时间成家，这导致了一种假设，即女性中小企业可能不太“有信誉”，在经济冲击的情况下，她们将遭受更多的损失，竞争能力可能是生存的关键然而，这一假设还有待于实证研究的检验。