Czech Insolvency Proceedings Data: Social Network Analysis

In 2008, the Czech government launched an information system called Insolvency Register of the Czech Republic. Already within the first year of its operation, about 5200 insolvencies were commenced. This number rose, however, immensely in the following years as the impact of the Global Financial Crisis became evident also in the Czech Republic - industrial production fell by 13.4% and many areas witnessed massive layoffs. Meanwhile, the Czech Insolvency Register contains publicly available data concerning approximately 160 000 insolvency proceedings. The subjects participating in insolvency proceedings include debtors, creditors, senates deciding in the respective insolvency matter and insolvency administrators who handle debtor's assets during the proceedings. Often, the involved subjects participate in several insolvency proceedings thus forming a complex social network that evolves over time. In order to better understand emerging trends in such a type of networks, we orient our research towards the identification of influential individuals. Association rules used to predict future behavior of the network reveal several interesting patterns present across the entire country as well as locally in specific regions only.