The topology of a causal network for the Chinese financial system

•The paper builds a causal network based on the Granger causality of company risks.•This causal network possesses both small-world phenomenon and scale-free property.•Its topologies are a little different between bull period and crisis period.•High centrality implies large individual risk.•High centrality also implies core role for systemic risk immunization.

The paper builds a causal network for the Chinese financial system based on the Granger causality of company risks, studies its different topologies in crisis and bull period, and applies the centrality to explain individual risk and prevent systemic risk. The results show that this causal network possesses both small-world phenomenon and scale-free property, and has a little different average distance, clustering coefficient, and degree distribution in different periods, and financial institutions with high centrality not only have large individual risk, but also are important for systemic risk immunization.