Title
Sensitivity of the Eisenberg-Noe clearing vector to individual interbank liabilities
Abstract
We quantify the sensitivity of the Eisenberg-Noe clearing vector to estimation errors in the bilateral liabilities of a financial system in a stylized setting. The interbank liabilities matrix is a crucial input to the computation of the clearing vector. However, in practice central bankers and regulators must often estimate this matrix because complete information on bilateral liabilities is rarely available. As a result, the clearing vector may suffer from estimation errors in the liabilities matrix. We quantify the clearing vectoru0027s sensitivity to such estimation errors and show that its directional derivatives are, like the clearing vector itself, solutions of fixed point equations. We describe estimation errors utilizing a basis for the space of matrices representing permissible perturbations and derive analytical solutions to the maximal deviations of the Eisenberg-Noe clearing vector. This allows us to compute upper bounds for the worst case perturbations of the clearing vector in our simple setting. Moreover, we quantify the probability of observing clearing vector deviations of a certain magnitude, for uniformly or normally distributed errors in the relative liability matrix. Applying our methodology to a dataset of European banks, we find that perturbations to the relative liabilities can result in economically sizeable differences that could lead to an underestimation of the risk of contagion. Our results are a first step towards allowing regulators to quantify errors in their simulations.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.2139/ssrn.3033476
Social Science Research Network
Field
DocType
Citations 
Magnitude (mathematics),Economics,Mathematical optimization,Financial economics,Matrix (mathematics),Clearing,Stylized fact,Model risk,Directional derivative,Complete information,Computation
Journal
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
4
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Weijie Pang100.34
Birgit Rudloff2312.98
Eric Finn Schaanning300.34
Stephan Sturm421.17
Mackenzie Wildman500.34