George Baourakis

Credit risk assessment using a multicriteria hierarchical discrimination approach: A comparative analysis

Corporate credit risk assessment decisions involve two major issues: the determination of the probability of default and the estimation of potential future benefits and losses for credit granting. The former issue is addressed by classifying the firms seeking credit into homogeneous groups representing different levels of credit risk. Classification/discrimination procedures commonly employed for such purposes include statistical and econometric techniques. This paper explores the performance of the M.H.DIS method (Multi-group Hierarchical DIScrimination), an alternative approach that originates from multicriteria decision aid (MCDA). The method is used to develop a credit risk assessment model using a large sample of firms derived from the loan portfolio of a leading Greek commercial bank. A total of 1411 firms are considered in both training and holdout samples using financial information through the period 1994–1997. A comparison with discriminant analysis (DA), logit analysis (LA) and probit analysis (PA) is also conducted to investigate the relative performance of the M.H.DIS method as opposed to traditional tools used for credit risk assessment. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Customers’ perspectives on the quality of organic olive oil in Greece

Consumers’ increasing need for safe and quality food has motivated this market research study. A customer satisfaction approach is followed to examine whether the quality of organic olive oil, the most important biological product that has recently entered the Greek food market, could affect consumers’ purchasing behavior. For this purpose a survey was conducted in the region of Thessaloniki, Greece. The implemented methodology is called MUlticriteria Satisfaction Analysis (MUSA) and takes into account that customers’ global satisfaction for organic olive oil depends on five criteria. The analysis showed that the average global satisfaction index was almost 78 percent. Health was considered to be the competitive advantage of organic olive oil. On the contrary, promotion and disposition seemed to be its greatest weaknesses. The price, along with the package, was also found to be significant. Finally, gives some recommendations for the continuing improvement of information and advertising, label information and image of the package, which are the weak characteristics of organic olive oil.

The impact of e‐commerce on agro‐food marketing: The case of agricultural cooperatives, firms and consumers in Crete

This paper is concerned with the impact of e‐commerce on agro‐food marketing. First, a theoretical framework is specified for the Internet as a marketing tool with emphasis on the agro‐food and organic food sections. Subsequently we present the results of a survey that was conducted in order to investigate how Cretan agricultural cooperatives use or tend to use the business methodology of e‐commerce. Consumers and managers of cooperatives in Crete reveal their expectations from the new technology. From this survey valuable information is gained about the practical relations between e‐commerce and the agro‐food market on the island, and divergence from the theoretical framework is noticed.

Supply chain and finance

This book describes recently developed mathematical models, methodologies, and case studies in diverse areas, including stock market analysis, portfolio optimization, classification techniques in economics, supply chain optimization, development of e-commerce applications, etc. It will be of interest to both theoreticians and practitioners working in economics and finance.

Agricultural product development using multidimensional and multicriteria analyses: The case of wine

Abstract Multicriteria analysis and multidimensional statistical methods can collaborate and offer new prospects in the fields of decision support and management in general. This paper presents a survey-based methodology which combines a multicriteria model for the consumers preference analysis as well as classical data analysis models to design agricultural products. The new products are developed in such a way that they eventually achieve the maximum possible market share. A real study for the Athenian wine market is presented for illustration. The paper concludes with some further reccomendations.

Fuzzy Sets in Management, Economics and Marketing

The rapid changes that have taken place globally on the economic, social and business fronts characterized the 20th century. The magnitude of these changes has formed an extremely complex and unpredictable decision-making framework, which is difficult to model through traditional approaches. The main purpose of this book is to present the most recent advances in the development of innovative techniques for managing the uncertainty that prevails in the global economic and management environments. These techniques originate mainly from fuzzy sets theory. However, the book also explores the integration of fuzzy sets with other decision support and modeling disciplines, such as multicriteria decision aid, neural networks, genetic algorithms, machine learning, chaos theory, etc. The presentation of the advances in these fields and their real world applications adds a new perspective to the broad fields of management science and economics.

A multicriteria approach for rating the credit risk of financial institutions

Within the new bank regulatory context, the assessment of the credit risk of financial institutions is an important issue for supervising authorities and investors. This study explores the possibility of a developing risk assessment model for financial institutions using a multicriteria classification method. The analysis is based on publicly available financial data for UK firms. The results indicate that the proposed multicriteria methodology provides promising results compared to well known statistical methods.

A comparative study of tourism performance in the Mediterranean region: a multicriteria approach

The aim of this study is to develop and implement a methodology for the evaluation of tourism performance of some Mediterranean countries. In this paper, the multicriteria method PROMETHEE II, based on outranking relations, will be used to evaluate ten Mediterranean countries, namely Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. For the above mentioned evaluation, 13 different criteria will be examined. These criteria contain both qualitative and quantitative information. The analysis effects of an overall ranking of the examined countries will be provided by classifying the strong and weak points of each country. Assessment of the analysis results is important in order to assist professionals in the tourism sector to make recommendations concerning marketing strategies and government policies. The study will come up with remarks about the direction of future research.

Analysis of food industry market using network approaches

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to segment the US food industry market through a network representation of the market.Design/methodology/approach – A tangible technique is implemented to study the structural properties of food industry market. A systematic procedure is described to interpret the US food industry sector market data as a graph, which provides the framework under which the market is studied. The maximum cliques and independent sets are found in the market graph, which provides an efficient way for clustering the financial instruments representing food industry. A statistical analysis on the degree distribution of food industry market graph is also performed to study the properties of the market graph.Findings – The maximum cliques provided a classification of stocks with similar behaviour. Market graphs were empirically shown to follow the power‐law model. The statistical analysis performed on the food industry market graph corroborated with this observation.Originality/value – This resea...

Sector modeling for the prediction and evaluation of Cretan olive oil

Greece is a major international olive oil producer. Olive oil varieties constitute the major crops for Greek farmers growing certain oriental olive oil varieties. Currently, the olive oil sector in Greece is undergoing substantial changes and the response of farmers and consumers to this will be a vital factor in its success. Throughout the application of the common agriculture policy (CAP), mechanisms, such as production aid, subsidies and marketing orders, were employed to support both producers and consumers. A possible reform of CAP aimed at eliminating or reducing production aid or any kind of subsidies could have a considerable effect on producer and consumer marketing behaviour. In this study a formulated mathematical problem for the olive oil sector on the island of Crete based on the welfare concept and the simulation of the olive oil market equilibrium, subject to specified policy interventions and circumstances was adopted. According to the results obtained, it was concluded that future olive oil policies should not impinge on mechanisms that influence olive oil farmers and consumer behaviour but should emphasize the greater cost effectiveness of production and marketing policies.