A growing trend in high schools across the state is the use of dual credit and dual enrollment courses to better prepare high school students for college or the work force. Given the increase in dual credit and dual enrollment participation and the goal of creating a more seamless transition from high school to college, the effectiveness of these programs needs to be researched. The research hypothesis for this study states that students who participate in a dual credit and dual enrollment program during high school are more likely to complete an associate degree within 3 years than students who do not participate in dual credit and dual enrollment, when accounting for covariates such as gender, race, and socioeconomic status. This study examined the effectiveness of dual credit and dual enrollment programs, particularly with regard to associate degree completion, credit hour accumulation, and college GPA. The participants in this study were 1st-time, full-time students enrolled during Academic Year 2007 at 5 of the 15 community and junior colleges in state of Mississippi. The sample included 6,029 students, of which 255 had previously participated in a dual enrollment or dual credit program. This study revealed that dual credit and dual enrollment participation positively affects postsecondary outcomes for students enrolling in community colleges in the areas of associate degree completion and college GPA. Students who started college with prior experience in a dual credit or dual enrollment program were 2.51 times more likely to complete an associate degree within 3 years of first-time, full-time college enrollment than individuals who did not participate. Additionally, the study revealed that factors such as SES, gender, and race had an effect on college GPA; and that SES and race affected the number of credit hours earned by community college students. Given the positive outcomes resulting from participation in dual credit and dual enrollment programs, these programs certainly bear consideration for expansion and further study in the future, particularly given the growing availability of longitudinal data within statewide longitudinal data systems that have launched in recent years across the United States.

The problem of credit rationing/borrowing constraint has recently received considerable attention. Individuals who are denied any credit by a financial institution, or who find it difficult to borrow against future incomes, are said to be credit rationed or borrowing constrained in the credit markets. This dissertation tries to identify the circumstances under which individuals may be rationed (or not), and analyses the actions undertaken to overcome future constraints. Chapter 2 analyses the problem of credit rationing as it arises in equilibrium, when borrowers differ with respect to their demands for loans. It is shown that if the principal can costlessly observe the agent’s type, then (i) the agents who meet the collateral requirements are not rationed in the sense of Stiglitz-Weiss (1981), (ii) the agents who do not meet the collateral requirements are rationed in the sense of Jaffee-Russell (1976). We further show that if the principal cannot distinguish between different agents, then the previous rationing results still hold in the second best contract which is pooling : agents of different types pick the same contract. Chapter 3 analyses the problem of credit rationing as it emerges in a dynamic setting, when a renegotiation of the original contract may be undertaken. It is conjectured that (i) the principal uses the information revealed about an agent’s type at the time of first repayment, to design future contracts, (ii) the agents who show consistently honest behavior are never rationed, (iii) the agents who showed dishonest behavior impose a negative externality on the agents who were honest; they are rationed in later periods. Finally, in chapter 3, we analyse the role of an exogenously imposed borrowing constraint prompting the individuals to change their life-cycle decisions. This chapter provides an explicit link between human and non-human wealth by making income endogenous through investment in human capital. The chapter also discusses the econometric aspects of the problem: the possible empirical work that can be undertaken in the future using a micro data set. / Ph. D.

This study was designed to determine (1) the level of priority that employees of nonprofit counseling agencies affiliated with the National Foundation for Consumer Credit (NFCC) feel the topics of credit, personal finance, investments, counseling, and consumer education should be given on a national certification examination for financial counselors, and (2) to determine the viewpoints of NFCC counselors concerning the format of a national certification examination. Data were collected with a 162-item questionnaire from 281 individuals employed by nonprofit counseling agencies affiliated with the NFCC; this represented an 83% response rate. Respondents were asked to prioritize 138-items on a scale of 1 for low priority to 5 for high priority. The items were distributed unevenly among the five topic areas. The overall mean priority score of all five topic areas was 3.6. Credit and counseling both received the highest individual topic mean priority score of 4.1. / Master of Science

The purpose of this study is to determine what factors make it necessary for teachers to seek credit, how the credit needs of teachers are now being met, and possible solutions for the problems that exist because of these conditions.

Yes / Following the global financial crisis, the measurement of counterparty credit risk has become an essential part of the Basel III accord with credit value adjustment being one of the most prominent components of this concept. In this study, we extend the Merton structural credit risk model for counterparty credit risk calculation in the context of calculating the credit value adjustment mainly by estimating the probability of default. We improve the Merton model in a variance-convoluted-gamma environment to include default dependence between counterparties through a linear factor decomposition framework. This allows one to tackle dependence through a systematic common component. Our set-up allows for easier, faster and more accurate fitting for the credit spread. Results confirm that use of the variance-gamma-convolution clearly solves the vanishing credit spread problem for short time-to-maturity or low leverage cases compared to a Brownian motion environment and its modifications. / Ahmet Sensoy gratefully acknowledges support from Turkish Academy of Sciences under its Outstanding Young Scientist Award Programme (TUBA-GEBIP). Frank J. Fabozzi acknowledges the financial support from EDHEC Business School.

Background: The relevance of sustainability has increased drastically during the recent years which has brought new regulations and guidelines by Swedish banks as well as governments. Therefore, the implementation of ESG has become more important to evolve the sustainable transition. One of the reasons for the implementation is because it has been demonstrated to bring financial benefits for both banks and companies.  Research Problem: Despite the increasing focus on the implementation of ESG, the existing research is mostly focused on companies and how it affects their performance. There was a lack of research regarding how Swedish banks integrate ESG in their corporate credit valuation. Which enlightens a gap in the research that requires additional focus.  Research Purpose: This study aims to investigate Swedish banks’ ESG considerations in credit valuation for corporate loans.  Research Questions:  -  How do Swedish banks integrate environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) into their credit valuation process for corporate lending?  -  How does ESG affect credit granting and cost of debt?  Research Method: This study uses a descriptive research design with exploratory insights to examine ESG integration in Swedish banks and its effect on credit granting and cost of debt. Qualitative analysis through semi-structured interviews with an abductive approach is utilized to delve into the subject.  Conclusion: The findings show the integration of ESG factors within the credit valuation process of Swedish banks. Stakeholder engagement and regulatory compliance work as major drivers for the implementation of ESG. Considerations regarding ESG are found to be consistently present in credit valuation, as primary or secondary determinants, evidenced by exclusion lists and risk analyses. Moreover, relationship lending contributes to banks actively guiding corporations towards sustainability. While a direct link between ESG performance and cost of debt is not clear, green loans offer reduced spreads for sustainable investments. The indirect relation between ESG performance and firm performance can foster reduced spreads. Overall, Swedish banks apply ESG principles widely alongside traditional credit assessment techniques.

Assessment of credit risk is crucial for the financial stability of banks, directly influencing their lending policies and economic resilience. This thesis explores advanced techniques for predictive modeling of Loss Given Default (LGD) and credit losses within major Swedish banks, with a focus on sophisticated methods in statistics and machine learning. The study specifically evaluates the effectiveness of various models, including linear regression, quantile regression, extreme gradient boosting, and ANN, to address the complexity of LGD’s bimodal distribution and the non-linearity in credit loss data. Key findings highlight the robustness of ANN and XGBoost in modeling complex data patterns, offering significant improvements over traditional linear models. The research identifies critical macroeconomic indicators—such as real estate prices, inflation, and unemployment rates—through an Elastic Net model, underscoring their predictive power in assessing credit risks.

This thesis deals with methodics of credit process of a particular credit union present on the Czech market. Because of confidentiality, the name of the credit union is not mentioned. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first part deals with characteristics of credit unions, their specifications and differences from banks. You can find in this part comparison of development of particular values of the analyzed credit union with the whole sector of Czech credit unions and bank sector as well. The second part is focused on importance of credit process, specifics of the balance of credit institutions, description of risks connected to credit process and principle of state regulation of this process. The third part describes in more details credit process of the analyzed credit union with further focus on acquisition period, credit analysis and decision making process. The last part explains questions of guarantee with all the types of guarantee of the analyzed credit union mentioned. Hence in the whole thesis the theory and practice is mixed together. In the concluding part I evaluate quality of credit process of the analyzed credit union, including the differences from credit process of bank institutions.

Esta tese trata de crédito, não da análise dos demonstrativos financeiros, e sim a partir do momento em que o resultado de uma análise criteriosa e competente é colocada à disposição do comitê para decidir pela concessão ou não do crédito. A decisão de crédito é nosso enfoque principal. A tese está dividida em quatro partes. Na primeira parte fazemos uma revisão bibliográfica sobre crédito, dos fundamentos históricos à aplicação de modelos sofisticados de administração de carteiras (o Creditmetrics), passando pelo Estado da Arte das técnicas de credit scoring. A segunda parte trata dos fundamentos da teoria da análise da decisão, onde discutimos e analisamos o comportamento político e racional nas organizações, e os principais problemas decorrentes de atitudes indesejáveis como escalation, groupthink e bandwagon. A terceira parte discorre, inicialmente, sobre a pesquisa e sua metodologia, apresentando as hipóteses a serem testadas. Na seqüência, com base em dezoito entrevistas com diretores das principais entidades bancárias do país, descrevemos o processo geral para a concessão de crédito para grandes corporações e analisamos sete casos de concessões de crédito malsucedidas. Finalmente, com uma amostra de 54 bancos, realizamos a análise estatística dos resultados buscando comprovar nossas hipóteses de pesquisa. Na quarta e última parte apresentamos o sumário e conclusões da tese. Podemos destacar a relevância dos aspectos comportamentais, como fundamento da tomada de decisão e crédito: os testes realizados comprovam a influência do comportamento racional como redutor do índice de inadimplência; enquanto os sintomas de comportamento político, escalation e groupthink contribuem para o aumento do índice de inadimplência. / This thesis is concerned with credit decision and not with financial statements analysis. More specifically, it is focused on the decision making process of the credit committee once the results of a competent anlysis is avalaible. The thesis is divided in four parts. In the first we present a review about credit, from its historical developments up to the applications of sophisticated portfolio management models and other modern techniques. The second part deals with the fundamentals of decision theory. We discuss ans analyze political and rational decision behaviors within organizations, and phenomenon such as escalation, groupthink and bandwagon. The third part presents, initially, the research problem, its methodology and the hypothesis to be tested. Subsequently, based on eighteen interviews with bank executives in Brazil, we describe the decision processes employed in the concession of credits to large corporations. We also analyze seven cases of unsuccessful credit decisions. Finally we present the statistical analysis of a survey by questionnaires from 54 Brazilian banks. In the fourth and last part we present the conclusions of this thesis. The key results in the importance of behavioral aspects in the credit decision processes: the statistical tests confirm that the rational behavior mitigates the bankruptcy index; while the political behavior, escalation and groupthink contribute to an increment of the banruptcy index.

Credit risk measurement and management has great importance in credit market. Credit derivative products are the major hedging instruments in this market and credit default swap contracts (CDSs) are the most common type of these instruments. As observed in credit crunch (credit crisis) that has started from the United States and expanded all over the world, especially crisis of Iceland, CDS premiums (prices) are better indicative of credit risk than credit ratings. Therefore, CDSs are important indicators for credit risk of an obligor and thus these products should be understood by market participants well enough. In this thesis, initially, advanced credit risk models firsts, the structural (firm value) models, Merton Model and Black-Cox constant barrier model, and the intensity-based (reduced-form) models, Jarrow-Turnbull and Cox models, are studied. For each credit risk model studied, survival probabilities are calculated. After explaining the basic structure of a single name CDS contract, by the help of the general pricing formula of CDS that result from the equality of in and out cash flows of these contracts, CDS price for each structural models (Merton model and Black-Cox constant barrier model) and CDS price for general type of intensity based models are obtained. Before the conclusion, default intensities are obtained from the distribution functions of default under two basic structural models / Merton and Black-Cox constant barrier. Finally, we conclude our work with some inferences and proposals.