Comovements of Different Asset Classes During Market Stress

This paper assesses the linkages between the most important U.S.financial asset classes (stocks, bonds, T-bills and gold) during periods of financial turmoil. Our results have potentially important implications for strategic asset allocation and pension fund management. We use multivariate extreme value theory to estimate the exposure of one asset class to extreme movements in the other asset classes. By applying structural break tests to those measures we study to what extent linkages in extreme asset returns and volatilities are changing over time. Univariate results andch bivariate comovement results exhib significant breaks in the 1970s and 1980s corresponding to the turbulent times of e.g. the oil shocks, Volcker's presidency of the Fed or the stock market crash of 1987.Flight to quality, financial market distress, extreme value theory

Asset market linkages in crisis periods

We characterize asset return linkages during periods of stress by an extremal dependence measure. Contrary to correlation analysis, this non-parametric measure is not predisposed towards the normal distribution and can account for non-linear relationships. Our estimates for the G-5 countries suggest that simultaneous crashes in stock markets are about two times more likely than in bond markets. Moreover, stock-bond contagion is about as frequent as flight to quality from stocks into bonds. Extreme cross-border linkages are surprisingly similar to national linkages, illustrating a potential downside to international financial integration JEL Classification: G1, F3, C49Bivariate Extreme Value Analysis, Extreme Co-movements, Flight to Quality

Banking System Stability: A Cross-Atlantic Perspective

This paper derives indicators of the severity and structure of banking system risk from asymptotic interdependencies between banks%u2019 equity prices. We use new tools available from multivariate extreme value theory to estimate individual banks%u2019 exposure to each other (%u201Ccontagion risk%u201D) and to systematic risk. Moreover, by applying structural break tests to those measures we study whether capital markets indicate changes in the importance of systemic risk over time. Using data for the United States and the euro area, we can also compare banking system stability between the two largest economies in the world. Finally, for Europe we assess the relative importance of cross-border bank spillovers as compared to domestic bank spillovers. The results suggest, inter alia, that systemic risk in the US is higher than in the euro area, mainly as cross-border risks are still relatively mild in Europe. On both sides of the Atlantic systemic risk has increased during the 1990s.

Business and financial cycles in the Eurozone: synchronization or decoupling

This paper proposes a novel approach, based on probit framework, towards measuring business cycle synchronization for 9 eurozone economies. We find strong cross-country synchronization in both business cycles and financial cycles. Moreover, financial synchronization dominates business cycle synchronization in the eurozone, especially after the introduction of the single currency. For some peripheral country pairs, we even find some evidence of "de-coupling" business cycles relative to the core countries but the majority of marginal business cycle effects do not change much over time. The former observation supports the often heard plea for more Europe-wide macro-prudential regulation whereas the latter observation gives ammunition to those economists that always stressed that the euro zone architecture is unfinished business and that the conditions for an optimum currency area are not fulfilled. JEL Classification: C25, E32, F4