The Journal oj Finance
(6) Long-Range Predictive Accuracy. The previous results give important
evidence of the reliability of the conclusions derived from the initial sample
of firms. An appropriate extension, therefore, would be to examine the firms
to determine the overall effectiveness of the discriminant model for a longer
period of time prior to bankruptcy. Several studies, e.g.. Beaver and Merwin,
indicated that their analyses showed firms exhibiting failure tendencies as
much as five years prior to the actual failure. Little is mentioned, however, of
the true significance of these earlier year results. Is it enough to show that a
firm's position is deteriorating or is it more important to examine when in the
life of a firm does its eventual failure, if any, become an acute possibility?
Thus far, we have seen that bankruptcy can be predicted accurately for two
years prior to failure. What about the more remote years?
To answer this question, data are gathered for the thirty-three original firms
from the third, fourth, and fifth year prior to bankruptcy. The reduced sample
is due to the fact that several of the firms were in existence for less than five
years. In two cases data were unavailable for the more remote years. One
would expect on an a priori basis that, as the lead time increases, the relative
predictive ability of any model would decrease. This was true in the univariate
studies cited earlier, and it is also quite true for the multiple discriminant
model. Table 4 summarizes the predictive accuracy for the total five year
period.
TABLE 4
FIVE YEAR PREDICTIVE ACCURACY OF THE MDA MODEL
(Initial Sample)
Year Prior to Bankruptcy
1st n = 33
2nd n = 32
3rd n = 29
4th n = 28
Sth n = 2S
Hits
31
23
14
8
9
Misses
2
9
IS
20
16
Per cent
Correct
9S
72
48
29
36