Large Banks and Systemic Spillovers

Abstract

What are the spillover effects when central financial institutions with dominant market shares simultaneously halt their liquidity creation and risk transformation roles? To shed light on this question, we build a novel, comprehensive dataset. Firms without a history of debt financing exhibit limited exposure to a systemic event. For firms that rely on external debt financing, their exposures are mainly driven by pre-existing connections to these central financial institutions. Further, having multiple bank connections or access to public debt issuance does not mitigate systemic exposures. The often-hypothesized diversification channels appear to be limited when central institutions are collectively constrained.