A Hybrid Under-sampling Approach for Better Bankruptcy Prediction

The purpose of this study is to improve bankruptcy prediction models by using a novel hybrid under-sampling approach. Most prior studies have tried to enhance the accuracy of bankruptcy prediction models by improving the classification methods involved. In contrast, we focus on appropriate data preprocessing as a means of enhancing accuracy. In particular, we aim to develop an effective sampling approach for bankruptcy prediction, since most prediction models suffer from class imbalance problems. The approach proposed in this study is a hybrid under-sampling method that combines the k-Reverse Nearest Neighbor (k-RNN) and one-class support vector machine (OCSVM) approaches. k-RNN can effectively eliminate outliers, while OCSVM contributes to the selection of informative training samples from majority class data. To validate our proposed approach, we have applied it to data from H Bank’s non-external auditing companies in Korea, and compared the performances of the classifiers with the proposed under-sampling and random sampling data. The empirical results show that the proposed under-sampling approach generally improves the accuracy of classifiers, such as logistic regression, discriminant analysis, decision tree, and support vector machines. They also show that the proposed under-sampling approach reduces the risk of false negative errors, which lead to higher misclassification costs.