Explainable Machine Learning Framework for Predicting Auto Loan Defaults
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study develops a machine learning framework to improve the prediction of automobile loan defaults by integrating explainable feature selection with advanced resampling techniques. Using publicly available data, we compare Logistic Regression, Random Forest, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Stacked classifiers. Feature selection methods, including SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values and Mutual Information (MI), and resampling techniques such as Synthetic Minority Over-sampling TEchnique (SMOTE), SMOTE-Tomek, and SMOTE Edited Nearest Neighbor (SMOTE-ENN), are evaluated. The results show that combining SHAP-based feature selection with SMOTE-Tomek resampling and a Stacked Classifier consistently achieves superior predictive performance. These findings highlight the value of explainable AI in enhancing credit risk assessment for auto lending. This research also offers valuable insights for addressing other financial modeling challenges involving imbalanced datasets, supporting more informed and reliable decision-making.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".