An overview of the self-organizing map algorithm, on which the papers in this issue are based, is presented in this article.

The Self-Organizing Map

Earnings Management and Investor Protection: An International Comparison

Bankruptcy prediction in banks and firms via statistical and intelligent techniques – A review

The Long Tail: How Technology is turning mass markets into millions of niches. (p. 15). This passage from The Long Tail, pretty much sums it all up. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson is a good and worthwhile read for information scientists, computer scientists, ecommerce researchers, and others interested in all areas of Web research. The central premise of the book is that the combination of (1) the Pareto or Zipf distribution (i.e., power law probability distribution) that is characteristic of Web traffic and (2) the direct access to consumers via Web technology has opened up new business opportunities in the ''long tail''. Producers and advertisers no longer have to target ''the big hits'' at the head of the distribution. Instead, they can target the small, niche communities or even individuals in the tail of the distribution. The long tail is has been studied by Web researchers and has been noted in term usage on search engines, access times to servers, and popularity of Web sites. Andersen points out that the long tail also applies to products sold on the Web. He recounts that a sizeable percentage of Amazon sales come from books that only sell a few copies, a large number of songs from Rhapsody get downloaded only once in a month, and a significant number of movies from Netflix only get ordered occasionally. However, since the storage is in digital form for the songs and music (and Amazon out sources the storage of books) there is little additional inventory cost of these items. This phenomenon across all Web companies has led to a broadening of participation by both producers and consumers that would not have happened without the Web. The idea of the long tail is well known, of course. What Anderson has done is present it in an interesting manner and in a Web ecommerce setting. He applies it to Web businesses and then relates the multitude of other factors ongoing that permit the actual implementation of the long tail effect. Anderson also expands on prior work on the long tail by introducing an element of time, given the distribution a three dimensional effect. All in all, it is a nifty idea. The book is comprised of 14 chapters, plus an Introduction. Chapter 1 presents an overview of what the long tail is. Chapter 2 discusses the ''head'', which is the top of the tail where the …

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More

Abstract There is a growing acknowledgement that micro-credit programs have potential for equitable and sustainable development. However, my anthropological research on the micro-credit program of the Grameen Bank shows that bank workers are expected to increase disbursement of loans among their members and press for high recovery rates to earn profit necessary for economic viability of the institution. To ensure timely repayment in the loan centers bank workers and borrowing peers inflict an intense pressure on women clients. In the study community many borrowers maintain their regular payment schedules through a process of loan recycling that considerably increases the debt-liability on the individual households, increases tension and frustration among household members, produces new forms of dominance over women and increases violence in society.

Micro-credit initiatives for equitable and sustainable development : who pays?; a case study of the Grameen Bank Program in rural Bangladesh

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are special financial institutions. They have both a social nature and a for-profit nature. Their performance has been traditionally measured by means of financial ratios. The paper goes beyond simple financial ratios using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to measure the efficiency of MFIs. Special care is taken in the specification of the DEA model. We take a methodological approach based on multivariate analysis. We rank DEA efficiencies under different models and specifications; e.g. particular sets of inputs and outputs. This serves to explore what is behind a DEA score. The results show that we can explain MFIs efficiency by means of four principal components of efficiency, and this way we are able to understand differences between DEA scores. It is shown that there are country effects on efficiency; and effects that depend on non-governmental organization (NGO)/non-NGO status of the MFI.

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Microfinance institutions and efficiency

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are a special case in the financial world. They have a double financial and social role and need to be efficient at both. In this paper, we try to measure t...

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Social efficiency in microfinance institutions

A complete Decision Support System (DSS) for financial diagnosis based on Self Organizing Feature Maps (SOFM) is described. This is a neural network model which, on the basis of the information contained in a multidimensional space — in the case exposed, financial ratios — generates a space of lesser dimensions. In this way, similar input patterns — in the case exposed, companies — are represented close to one another on a map. The neural network has been complemented and compared with multivariate statistical models such as Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), as well as with neural models such as the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP). As the principal advantage, this DSS provides a complete analysis which goes beyond that of the traditional models based on the construction of a solvency indicator also known as Z score, without renouncing simplicity for the final decision maker.

http://ciberconta.unizar.es/ftp/pub/docs/DSS%20NN%20_serrano_.pdf

Self organizing neural networks for financial diagnosis

This paper studies P2P lending and the factors explaining loan default. This is an important issue because in P2P lending individual investors bear the credit risk, instead of financial institutions, which are experts in dealing with this risk. P2P lenders suffer a severe problem of information asymmetry, because they are at a disadvantage facing the borrower. For this reason, P2P lending sites provide potential lenders with information about borrowers and their loan purpose. They also assign a grade to each loan. The empirical study is based on loans’ data collected from Lending Club (N = 24,449) from 2008 to 2014 that are first analyzed by using univariate means tests and survival analysis. Factors explaining default are loan purpose, annual income, current housing situation, credit history and indebtedness. Secondly, a logistic regression model is developed to predict defaults. The grade assigned by the P2P lending site is the most predictive factor of default, but the accuracy of the model is improved by adding other information, especially the borrower’s debt level.

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Determinants of Default in P2P Lending

This paper uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a non-parametric approach to the estimation of production functions, in order to assess efficiency in dot corn firms. These firms have two objectives: to make an impact in the Internet and to obtain revenues from their activities. For this reason, the outputs have been two: unique visitors--a web metric--and revenues. DEA efficiencies have been obtained under various input/output combinations. A ranking of dot com firms in terms of relative efficiency has been obtained. A method based on multivariate analysis has been proven to be successful at showing the strengths and weaknesses of individual dot com firms. It is shown that there is a relationship between the type of e-business (e-tailers, search/portal, content/communities), and the way in which efficiency is obtained. The paper suggests a new approach to the problem of deciding which inputs and outputs the model should contain.

Carlos Serrano-Cinca

Papers

Microfinance institutions and efficiency

Social efficiency in microfinance institutions

Self organizing neural networks for financial diagnosis

Determinants of Default in P2P Lending

Measuring DEA efficiency in internet companies