[We derive a measure of aggregate systemic risk, designated CATFIN, that complements bank-specific systemic risk measures by forecasting macroeconomic downturns six months into the future using out-of-sample tests conducted with U.S., European, and Asian bank data. Consistent with bank "specialness," the CATFIN of both large and small banks forecasts macroeconomic declines, whereas a similarly defined measure for both nonfinancial firms and simulated "fake banks" has no marginal predictive ability. High levels of systemic risk in the banking sector impact the macroeconomy through aggregate lending activity. A conditional asset pricing model shows that CATFIN is priced for financial and nonfinancial firms.]

Market liquidity is impacted by the presence of financial intermediaries that are informed and active participants in both the equity and the syndicated bank loan markets, specifically informationally advantaged lead arrangers of syndicated bank loans that simultaneously act as equity market makers (dual market makers). Employing a two-stage procedure with instrumental variables, we identify the simultaneous equations model of liquidity and dual market maker decisions. We find that the presence of dual market makers improves the liquidity of the more competitive and transparent equity markets, but widens the spread in the less competitive over-the-counter loan market, particularly for small, informationally opaque firms.

We derive a measure of aggregate systemic risk, designated CATFIN, that complements bank-specific systemic risk measures by forecasting macroeconomic downturns six months into the future using out-of-sample tests conducted with U.S., European, and Asian bank data. Consistent with bank “specialness,” the CATFIN of both large and small banks forecasts macroeconomic declines, whereas a similarly defined measure for both nonfinancial firms and simulated “fake banks” has no marginal predictive ability. High levels of systemic risk in the banking sector impact the macroeconomy through aggregate lending activity. A conditional asset pricing model shows that CATFIN is priced for financial and nonfinancial firms.