Examining the interconnectedness and early warning signals of systemic risks of shadow banks: an application to the Indian shadow bank crisis

Purpose The paper models the financial interconnectedness and systemic risk of shadow banks using Granger-causal network-based measures and takes the Indian shadow bank crisis of 2018–2019 as a systemic event. Design/methodology/approach The paper employs pairwise linear Granger-causality tests adjusted for heteroskedasticity and return autocorrelation on a rolling window of weekly returns data of 52 financial institutions from 2016 to 2019 to construct network-based measures and calculate network centrality. The Granger-causal network-based measure ranking of financial institutions in the pre-crisis period (explanatory variable) is rank-regressed with the ranking of financial institutions based on maximum percentage loss suffered by them during the crises period (dependent variable). Findings The empirical result demonstrated that the shadow bank complex network during the crisis is denser, more interconnected and more correlated than the tranquil period. The closeness, eigenvector, and PageRank centrality established the systemic risk transmitter and receiver roles of institutions. The financial institutions that are more central and hold prestigious positions due to their incoming links suffered maximum loss. The shadow bank network also showed small-world phenomena similar to social networks. Granger-causal network-based measures have out-of-sample predictive properties and can predict the systemic risk of financial institutions. Research limitations/implications The study considers only the publicly listed financial institutions. Also, the proposed measures are susceptible to the size of the rolling window, frequency of return and significance level of Granger-causality tests. Practical implications Supervisors and financial regulators can use the proposed measures to monitor the development of systemic risk and swiftly identify and isolate contagious financial institutions in the event of a crisis. Also, it is helpful to policymakers and researchers of an emerging economy where bilateral exposures' data between financial institutions are often not present in the public domain, plus there is a gap or delay in financial reporting. Originality/value The paper is one of the first to study systemic risk of shadow banks using a financial network comprising of commercial banks and mutual funds. It is also the first one to study systemic risk of Indian shadow banks.