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Journal of Financial Stability Vol. 77 2025

Bank diversity and financial contagion

Emmanuel Caiazzo1,2; Alberto Zazzaro1,3

1 Federico II University Hospital · 2 University of Naples Federico II · 3 Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance

open access

Abstract

This paper analyzes financial contagion in a banking system where banks are linked to each other by interbank claims and common assets. We find that asset commonality makes banking systems more vulnerable to idiosyncratic liquidity shocks and helps to determine which interbank network structures are resistant to contagion. When the degree of commonality is homogeneous across banks, the complete interbank network, in which each bank borrows evenly from all the others, displays the usual robust-yet-fragile property. However, in the more general case of heterogeneous common asset holdings the complete interbank network is less resilient than other incomplete networks but not necessarily the most fragile. We also show that the degree and variability of asset commonality between banks and the way this intertwines with the cross-holdings of interbank deposits have important implications for macroprudential regulation.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfs.2025.101392
Volume
77
Pages
101392
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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