Measuring systemic vulnerability in European banking systems

We construct a measure of systemic vulnerability in selected EU banking systems using an indirect, time-varying measure of the system covariance. Systemic vulnerability indicates the extent to which a banking system as a whole is sensitive to a negative shock. We proceed to examine to what extent the resulting measures of systemic vulnerability provide a convincing narrative of events during the period January 2000 to April 2016. The results provide evidence of: (i) rising vulnerability prior to the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2007/08 in countries with banks exposed to toxic assets; (ii) vulnerability associated with the euro area sovereign debt crisis from 2009/10; and (iii) continued concerns from 2013 onwards regarding the need for euro area banks to improve their balance sheets and raise new capital at a time of sluggish profitability.