An Equilibrium-Based Measure of Systemic Risk

Abstract

This paper develops and implements an equilibrium model of systemic risk. The model derives a systemic risk measure, loss beta, in characterizing all too-big-to-fail banks using a capital insurance equilibrium. By constructing each bank’s loss portfolio with a recent accounting approach, we perform a comprehensive empirical study of this loss beta measure and document all TBTF banks from 2002 to 2019. Our empirical findings suggest a significant number of too-big-to-fail banks in 2018–2019.