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Traditionally, loan officers use different credit scoring models to complement judgmental methods to classify consumer loan applications. This study explores the use of decision trees, AdaBoost, and support vector machines (SVMs) to identify potential bad loans. Our results show that AdaBoost does provide an improvement over simple decision trees as well as SVM models in predicting good credit clients and bad credit clients. To cross-validate our results, we use k-fold classification methodology.

As cable and satellite industry undergoes transformation in the 21st century with the onslaught of innovation-driven changes, it is important to know which company is doing better and which company is falling behind. This study compares the relative performance of eight cable companies using three factors: operating expense for every dollar of operating revenue, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, and return on assets. We also evaluate the performance of each firm against itself for the period 2010–2013 to see if they show improvement or deterioration in operating efficiency.

Mutual fund ratings are extremely popular among mutual fund investors, with over 8,000 mutual funds currently available to them and a huge increase in privately managed retirement accounts. Morningstar introduced the star-rating system to mutual funds, grading them on a range of one to five stars, with one star being the lowest and five stars being the highest. Because of its simplicity and resemblance to the ratings of so many other products we buy, the star-rating system has become an intrinsic element of mutual fund jargon. Morningstar experts award 5-star funds a gold, silver, or bronze medal ranking based on their instinctual analysis. This research investigates whether all gold-medal winning five-star mutual funds are equally efficient in terms of risk-adjusted performance. When total return, adjusted expense ratio, standard deviation, tax cost ratio, Sharpe ratio, and fund alpha are all considered, we discovered that not all “gold medal” mutual funds are equally efficient. Investors should take care even among “gold medal” funds since some are more efficient than others.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the effectiveness of the integration of Europe by benchmarking economic progress made by the participating nations.

Using data envelopment analysis, this paper compares the relative performance of 26 European Union (EU) nations against one another with seven economic variables as the benchmark parameters from 1999 to 2006.

The paper finds that not all the participating nations were equally efficient at the beginning of the economic integration in 1999. Economic integration does help in achieving convergence in economic performance of 26 EU nations, because 18 of the 26 nations were efficient in 2002. However, this paper finds that after 2002, there is a lack of convergence in the performance of 26 EU nations and some nations have performed more efficiently in contrast to other nations.

The paper identifies the member nations that are lagging behind and make recommendations as to how they can improve their performance to bring them at par with other participating nations.

The economic crisis has its roots in the financial services industry, but it certainly impacted the higher education in a way that has far-reaching implications for the colleges and universities in the United States. With unemployment rates of 8% and above, it made it difficult for families to send their kids to colleges and as a result colleges faced decline in enrollments and pressure to cut costs. Discount rates at almost all universities with an average size of 8,000 or less went up significantly. Academic departments at various universities came under pressure to get leaner and perform better with fewer resources. In this study, we benchmark the financial performance of public universities and private universities against each other as well as against themselves over the years by using data envelopment analysis model. The study also compares universities, public and private, with less than 3,000 students and more than 3,000 students against each other as well as over a period of time. The study is important as it will help university policy makers identify their strengths and weaknesses so that they can capitalize on their strong academic programs and make changes to fix weaker academic programs.

The economic crisis of 2007–2009 had a major negative impact on financial institutions in general. Health and life insurance industry continues to face growth challenges even six years after the economic crisis. Due to the challenges faced by health and life insurance industry, several companies in this industry have merged and some decided to get out of this business altogether. This study benchmarks 10 life and health insurance companies on the basis of return on equity, investment yield, and loss ratio for the year 2009 and 2014.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) provide a mechanism through which investors can participate in the real estate market with liquidity and transparency. In this study, we benchmark the performance of 11 residential REITs for the period 2009–2013. The study tracks the performance of residential REITs through the economic crisis period. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) model uses well-performing units (efficiency of 1% or 100%) that are closest to the underperforming unit on the efficiency frontier as a “role model” (peer units) for the underperforming unit. In addition, the DEA model also calculates by how much a nonperforming unit should increase the output level or decrease the inputs level to be on the efficiency frontier (100%) (slack values). Thus, the DEA model identifies the underperforming units and the most feasible path to move to efficiency frontier. The DEA model identifies the peer units that are closely related to these units and calculates the value of the slack variables required to achieve the same efficiency level as their peers.

Skincare, hair care, make-up, perfumes, toiletries and deodorants, and oral cosmetics are the main product categories of the cosmetic market. Since the early twentieth century, the production of cosmetics and beauty products has been controlled by a handful of multi-national corporations. COVID-19 impacted the cosmetics industry in several different and sometimes conflicting ways. This study benchmarks the performance of 20 largest cosmetics companies against their competition as well as against their previous years to analyze the impact of COVID-19. We find that only one company has consistently performed than its peers over the period of 2015–2020. We also find that average efficiency score of cosmetics companies declines in 2020 relative to 2019.

In this chapter, we illustrate the use of data envelopment analysis, an operations research technique, to analyze the financial performance of the seven largest retailers in the United States by benchmarking a set of financial ratios of a firm against its peers. Data envelopment analysis clearly brings out the firms that are operating more efficiently in comparison to other firms in the industry, and points out the areas in which poorly performing firms need to improve.

This study develops a multidimensional framework using data envelopment analysis (DEA) as a benchmarking tool to assess the performance of the commercial banks in India. Using the DEA approach, this study compares the relative performance of 35 banks against one another with 8 variables as the benchmark parameters. This study finds that most of the banks are consistently performing well over a period from 2005 to 2009. The study also shows the areas in which inefficient banks are lagging behind and how they can improve their performance to bring them at par with the efficient commercial banks.