A Genealogy of Systemic Risk Network Measures adopted by Regulators

This project was part of the team project "Systemic Risk and Network Connectivity".

Topic & Objectives

The project has successfully conducted an analysis of the genealogy of systemic risk measures, employing both expert interviews as well as unsupervised quantitative text analysis to uncover the origins of the systemic risk measures in use by regulators after the financial crisis. The final output of the project has been published in 2020 in the prestigious Review of International Political Economy under the title "Measuring and mitigating systemic risks: How new alliances between central-bank and academic economists are forging the transnational macroprudential agenda".

Key Findings

• Applied economists in central banks, together with academics jointly produced the risk measures in use by regulators.
• Academics alone were insufficiently sensitive to both the ontological convictions and the practical necessities of regulators with respect to systemic risk measures.
• Applied economists in central banks developed early warning systems, but those published in highly prestigious academic outlets, such as the American Economic Review (s. e.g. the paper by Adrian et al 2020, Vulnerable Growth”) have developed the greatest impact.

Policy Implications

• For academic work, seeking to advance the measurement and mitigation of systemic risk, in order to be impactful, collaboration with central banks and central bank economists should be pursued.