Corporate Bankruptcy Prediction Model using Explainable AI-based Feature Selection

Abstract

A corporate insolvency prediction model serves as a vital tool for objectively monitoring the financial condition of companies. It enables timely warnings, facilitates responsive actions, and supports the formulation of effective management strategies to mitigate bankruptcy risks and enhance performance. Investors and financial institutions utilize default prediction models to minimize financial losses. As the interest in utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology for corporate insolvency prediction grows, extensive research has been conducted in this domain. However, there is an increasing demand for explainable AI models in corporate insolvency prediction, emphasizing interpretability and reliability. The SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) technique has gained significant popularity and has demonstrated strong performance in various applications. Nonetheless, it has limitations such as computational cost, processing time, and scalability concerns based on the number of variables. This study introduces a novel approach to variable selection that reduces the number of variables by averaging SHAP values from bootstrapped data subsets instead of using the entire dataset. This technique aims to improve computational efficiency while maintaining excellent predictive performance. To obtain classification results, we aim to train random forest, XGBoost, and C5.0 models using carefully selected variables with high interpretability. The classification accuracy of the ensemble model, generated through soft voting as the goal of high-performance model design, is compared with the individual models. The study leverages data from 1,698 Korean light industrial companies and employs bootstrapping to create distinct data groups. Logistic Regression is employed to calculate SHAP values for each data group, and their averages are computed to derive the final SHAP values. The proposed model enhances interpretability and aims to achieve superior predictive performance.