Insolvency and contagion in the Brazilian interbank market

This paper proposes a new way to model and analyze contagion in interbank networks. We use a unique dataset from the Brazilian financial system and include all active financial intermediaries. We show that the contagion chain has a short propagation path. We find that first-round contagion is generated only by banks and that medium-sized banks can generate contagion, which implies that size is not the sole determinant of importance within networks. Most vulnerable financial institutions are not banks. Finally, we compute a lower bound for the financial system expected losses in a 1-year horizon. The results contribute to the development of a financial stability-monitoring toolkit. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.