Bank Lending Policy, Credit Scoring, and the Survival of Loans
用双变量Tobit模型分析银行放贷决策与贷款存活时间，发现银行放贷政策既未最小化违约风险也未最大化存活时间，两者间不存在权衡。
To evaluate loan applicants, banks increasingly use credit scoring models. The objective of such models typically is to minimize default rates or the number of incorrectly classified loans. Thereby they fail to take into account that loans are multiperiod contracts, for which reason it is important for banks not only to know if but also when a loan will default. In this paper a bivariate tobit model with a variable censoring threshold and sample selection effects is estimated for (1) the decision to provide a loan or not and (2) the survival time of granted loans. The model proves to be an effective tool to separate applicants with short and with long survival times. The bank's loan provision process is shown to be inefficient: loans are granted in a way that conflicts with both default risk minimization and survival time maximization. There is thus no trade-off between higher default risk and higher return in the lending policy. © 2004 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.