Systemic risk for financial institutions of major petroleum-based economies: The role of oil

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between oil price movements and systemic risk of many financial institutions in major petroleum-based economies. We estimate ?CoVaR for those institutions and thereby observe the presence of elevated increases in the levels corresponding to the subprime and global financial crises. The results provide evidence in favour of a better risk measurement by accounting for oil returns in the risk functions. The estimated spread between the standard CoVaR and the CoVaR that includes oil is absorbed in a time range that is longer than the duration of the oil shocks. This indicates that the drop in oil prices has a longer effect on risk and requires more time to be discounted by the financial institutions. To support the analysis, we consider other major market-based systemic risk measures.