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Working Paper
Evaluating the Information Value for Measures of Systemic Conditions
Timely identification of coincident systemic conditions and forward-looking capacity to anticipate adverse developments are critical for macroprudential policy. Despite clear recognition of these factors in literature, an evaluation methodology and empirical tests for the information value of coincident measures are lacking. This paper provides a twofold contribution to the literature: (i) a general-purpose evaluation framework for assessing information value for measures of systemic conditions, and (ii) an empirical assessment of the information value for several alternative measures of US ...
Working Paper
The financial stress index: identification of systemic risk conditions
This paper develops a financial stress index for the United States, the Cleveland Financial Stress Index (CFSI), which provides a continuous signal of financial stress and broad coverage of the areas that could indicate it. The index is based on daily public-market data collected from four sectors of the fi nancial markets?the credit, foreign exchange, equity, and interbank markets. A dynamic weighting method is employed to capture changes in the relative importance of these four sectors as they occur. In addition, the design of the index allows the origin of the stress to be identified. We ...
Working Paper
Financial stress index: a lens for supervising the financial system
This paper develops a new financial stress measure (Cleveland Financial Stress Index, CFSI) that considers the supervisory objective of identifying risks to the stability of the financial system. The index provides a continuous signal of financial stress and broad coverage of the areas that could indicate it. The construction methodology uses daily public market data collected from different sectors of financial markets. A unique feature of the index is that it employs a dynamic weighting method that captures the changing relative importance of the different sectors of the financial system. ...
Working Paper
From Organization to Activity in the US Collateralized Interbank Market
This paper studies and connects market organization and activity in the US collateralized interbank market using an assumption-neutral approach. We apply cluster analysis to aggregate activity factors suggested by prior studies to support two market organizations: three-tier and core-periphery. We find that four bank-specific factors and one economic conditions factor explain interbank activity for both alternative organizations. We also find evidence that the interbank market organization affects institutions? borrowing and lending. While both organizations moderate interbank activity, the ...
Working Paper
SAFE: An early warning system for systemic banking risk
This paper builds on existing microprudential and macroprudential early warning systems (EWSs) to develop a new, hybrid class of models for systemic risk, incorporating the structural characteristics of the fi nancial system and a feedback amplification mechanism. The models explain fi nancial stress using both public and proprietary supervisory data from systemically important institutions, regressing institutional imbalances using an optimal lag method. The Systemic Assessment of Financial Environment (SAFE) EWS monitors microprudential information from the largest bank holding companies to ...
Journal Article
The Evolution of the \\"Bank Examiner\\"
Working Paper
Cryptography and the economics of supervisory information: balancing transparency and confidentiality
We elucidate the tradeoffs between transparency and confidentiality in the context of financial regulation. The structure of information in financial contexts creates incentives with a pervasive effect on financial institutions and their relationships. This includes supervisory institutions, which must balance the opposing forces of confidentiality and transparency that arise from their examination and disclosure duties. Prudential supervision can expose confidential information to examiners who have a duty to protect it. Disclosure policies work to reduce information asymmetries, empowering ...
Journal Article
The Cleveland financial stress index
To promote stability in a dynamic fi nancial system, supervisors must monitor the system for risks at all times. The Cleveland Fed has developed an index of fi nancial stress, the CFSI, which is designed to track distress in the fi nancial system as it is building. The CFSI will help financial system supervisors monitor and understand the state of fi nancial markets on a real-time basis, and take appropriate regulatory or supervisory action as necessary.
Working Paper
Policy in adaptive financial markets—the use of systemic risk early warning tools
How can a systemic risk early warning system (EWS) facilitate the financial stability work of policymakers? In the context of evolving financial market dynamics and limitations of microprudential policy, this study examines new directions for financial macroprudential policy. A flexible macroprudential approach is anchored in strategic capacities of systemic risk EWSs. Tactically, macroprudential applications are founded on information about the level, structure, and institutional drivers of systemic financial stress and aim to manage the financial system risk and imbalances in two ...