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

我的研究项目旨在对苏格兰女性拥有/控制的中小企业(SME)的信用风险状况进行建模，并预测经济冲击对其信用价值的影响。中心假设是，由于性别差异，女性中小企业具有更不利的信用风险状况(即更大的违约概率)，在经济不稳定时期生存的可能性较小。然而，这一假设从未在苏格兰的女性中小企业中得到实证检验。因此，需要解决的关键研究问题是：女性中小企业的信用风险状况是否比男性更不利？现有的企业倒闭理论是否有助于识别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，女性中小企业更有可能倒闭吗？该项目的成果将使人们对改善女性领导的中小企业的生存机会和信誉所需的措施有深入的了解。他们主要为运筹学/管理科学领域做出贡献。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用风险评估，信用评分方法用于建立预测模型，以违约概率衡量借款人的信用可靠性。必须指出的是，基本目的是预测，基于区分和确定协变量来改进预测，而不是识别和确认因果关系，后者更典型地存在于金融领域，例如，在较大公司的信用风险模型中。在苏格兰，34万家企业中99.8%是中小企业。女性所有的企业创造了超过46万个就业机会(私营部门就业人数的26.7%)(FSB，2018年)。然而，苏格兰小企业调查(2018)报告称，只有15%的拥有员工的中小企业是由女性领导的，比2017年下降了6%。目前缺乏对女性中小企业相对成功的学术研究，特别是她们随着时间的推移而存活下来的模型。关于苏格兰妇女经营的中小企业的信用风险概况、风险决定因素和驱动因素，学术文献中有具体的空白，没有研究宏观经济条件的变化如何影响它们的信用价值。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，目前缺乏确定PD相关驱动因素的理论框架，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的能力。然而，有大量的学术研究发展了关于企业失败原因的理论，例如资源依赖理论(Seppard，1995)；新事物的可靠性假说(Yang&Aldrich，2017)，因此这一理论将被用作确定模型的关键变量的起点，尽管重点仍然是预测能力。心理属性理论表明，女性通常可能比男性更厌恶风险、更少竞争和更不自信，研究已经在商业/金融环境中对此进行了测试(例如Charness&Gnezy，2012；Kamas&Preston，2012；Fisher&姚，2017)。即使研究表明，导致观察到的差异的更多的是背景，而不是性别属性，这种背景差异的一些可以用人力资本理论来解释，根据人力资本理论，女性企业家可能没有那么多时间发展她们的技能/经验，例如组建家庭的时间，或者其他社会障碍。这导致了一种假设，即女性中小企业可能不那么‘值得信赖’，在发生经济冲击时，她们将遭受更大的打击，在这种情况下，竞争能力可能是生存的关键。然而，这一假设尚未得到实证研究的检验。

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.