An SPDE model for systemic risk with endogenous contagion

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Publication:1999595



Abstract: We propose a dynamic mean field model for `systemic risk' in large financial systems, which we derive from a system of interacting diffusions on the positive half-line with an absorbing boundary at the origin. These diffusions represent the distances-to-default of financial institutions and absorption at zero corresponds to default. As a way of modelling correlated exposures and herd behaviour, we consider a common source of noise and a form of mean-reversion in the drift. Moreover, we introduce an endogenous contagion mechanism whereby the default of one institution can cause a drop in the distances-to-default of the other institutions. In this way, we aim to capture key `system-wide' effects on risk. The resulting mean field limit is characterized uniquely by a nonlinear SPDE on the half-line with a Dirichlet boundary condition. The density of this SPDE gives the conditional law of a non-standard `conditional' McKean--Vlasov diffusion, for which we provide a novel upper Dirichlet heat kernel type estimate that is essential to the proofs. Depending on the realizations of the common noise and the rate of mean reversion, the SPDE can exhibit rapid accelerations in the loss of mass at the boundary. In other words, the contagion mechanism can give rise to periods of significant systemic default clustering.


In the present paper, the authors model a large financial system by an interacting particle system, which is presented in Section 1.4. In order to make the framework as flexible as possible, they consider a more general version of this model, namely an interacting particle system of the form (2.1). Under some structural conditions (see Assumption 2.1), they show that the mean field limit is given by the nonlinear SPDE (2.3) on the half-line with a Dirichlet boundary condition; see Theorem 2.4. Furthermore, the authors derive a uniqueness result for the limit SPDE (see Theorem 2.6), which in particular implies uniqueness in law, and they show that the density of the limit SPDE is the conditional law of a conditional McKean-Vlasov diffusion equation; see Theorem 2.7. Some qualitative insights for systemic risk are discussed as well.



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