Modelling local government unit credit risk in the Republic of Croatia
Petra Posedel, Zagreb School of Economics and Management, Zagreb, Croatia Marko Primorac, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business, Zagreb, Croatia Abstract The objective of this paper is to determine possible indicators that affect local unit credit risk and investigate their effect on default (credit risk) of local government units in Croatia. No system for the estimation of local unit credit risk has been established in Croatia so far causing many practical problems in local unit borrowing. Because of the specific nature of the operations of local government units and legislation that does not allow local government units to go into bankruptcy, conventional methods for estimating credit risk are not applicable, and the set of standard potential determinants of credit risk has to be expanded with new indicators. Thus in the paper, in addition to the usual determinants of credit risk, the hypothesis of the influence of political factors on local unit credit risk in Croatia is also tested out, with the use of a Tobit model. Results of econometric analysis show that credit risk of local government units in Croatia is affected by the political structure of local government, the proportion of income tax and surtax in operating revenue, the ratio of net operating balance, net financial liabilities and direct debt to operating revenue, as well as the ratio of debt repayment and cash, and direct debt and operating revenue.
Keywords: credit risk, local government units, Tobit model, Croatia
Year: 2012 | Volume: 36 | Issue: 4 | Pages: 329 - 354
Full text (PDF) | DOI: 10.3326/fintp.36.4.1 | E-mail this article | Download to citation manager | | December, 2012 IV / 2012 |