Il contributo dei modelli di previsione delle insolvenze nelle politiche di risanamento. Il progetto del laboratorio pubblico per il sostegno delle aziende in crisi: una ricerca in itinere.

This paper aims to outline the main steps and results of a research in progress which, as an ultimate end, aspires to the establishment of a local laboratory for the analysis and intervention for the recovery of companies in crisis. Research has focused so far on two main projects co-financed by the Ministry of Education, University and Research (2003-2005) and the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Handicraft and Agriculture of Ferrara, along with other partners (2011). These projects have established a solid basis for further research development, that is the design of a public laboratory for the support of companies in crisis. Both deductive and inductive methodology approaches were employed to carry out the analysis. The former was employed for the critical analysis of the major contributions to literature, nationally and internationally, in the field of corporate crisis, pathological diagnosis methods (with a particular focus on bankruptcy prediction models) and recovery policies. The latter was particularly articulated and complex because the research application phase gradually developed into a series of consecutive projects, each with its own objectives to pursue. These goals must not be viewed in isolation but as a whole, that is as intermediate steps of a single research path aimed at the establishment of a local laboratory for the contrast of corporate crisis. As far as results are concerned, so far research has allowed us: - to reflect on the potential of the bankruptcy prediction models of public policies for the support and monitoring of companies in crisis. It is an application context, which has not yet been sufficiently explored in literature. In our opinion, however, these tools, which allow early discrimination between healthy and critical companies, would enable the Government to provide targeted and timely interventions, thus avoiding the expensive policy of indiscriminate distribution of available resources; - to reason about economic and organisational sustainability of the forecasting models (efficiency analysis). The efficiency analysis, indeed, represents an innovation in this field of studies which are mainly focused on the econometric tools for performance. This is, nevertheless, an essential step in the hypothesis – such as that outlined in this contribution – of the actual use of these models by market operators, whether publicly or privately; - to test the accuracy of certain models considered effective, according to the parameters defined during the analysis. These tools were applied to sample financial statements of some companies located in Ferrara (Italy). Sample analysis led to the identification of an instrument where the degree of prediction accuracy and economic sustainability were adequately balanced; - to design a public laboratory for corporate crisis management, thanks to the positive outcomes regarding the reliability of the efficient models obtained from the empirical analysis developed.