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Uncovering Sparse Financial Networks with Information Criteria

Fu Ouyang, Thomas T. Yang, Wenying Yao

arXiv 7 Jan 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2601.03598 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

Empirical measures of financial connectedness based on Forecast Error Variance Decompositions (FEVDs) often yield dense network structures that obscure true transmission channels and complicate the identification of systemic risk. This paper proposes a novel information-criterion-based approach to uncover sparse, economically meaningful financial networks. By reformulating FEVD-based connectedness as a regression problem, we develop a model selection framework that consistently recovers the active set of spillover channels. We extend this method to generalized FEVDs to accommodate correlated shocks and introduce a data-driven procedure for tuning the penalty parameter using pseudo-out-of-sample forecast performance. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the approach's effectiveness with finite samples and its robustness to approximately sparse networks and heavy-tailed errors. Applications to global stock markets, S&P 500 sectoral indices, and commodity futures highlight the prevalence of sparse networks in empirical settings.

Citation extraction

30
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53
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Diebold, Francis X and Yilmaz, Kamil (2014) On the network topology of variance decompositions: Measuring the connectedness of financial firms1.00093100%
2Diebold, Francis X. and Yilmaz, Kamil (2009) Measuring Financial Asset Return and Volatility Spillovers, with Application to Global Equity Markets0.87492100%
3H.Hashem Pesaran and Yongcheol Shin (1998) Generalized impulse response analysis in linear multivariate models0.73732100%
4Ando, Tomohiro and Greenwood-Nimmo, Matthew and Shin, Yongcheol (2022) Quantile Connectedness: Modeling Tail Behavior in the Topology of Financial Networks0.64422100%
5Gideon Schwarz (1978) Estimating the Dimension of a Model0.64422100%
6Monica Billio and Mila Getmansky and Andrew W. Lo and Loriana Pelizzon (2012) Econometric measures of connectedness and systemic risk in the finance and insurance sectors0.51121100%
7Demirer, Mert and Diebold, Francis X and Liu, Laura and Yilmaz, Kamil (2018) Estimating global bank network connectedness0.51121100%
8Helmut Lütkepohl (1990) Asymptotic Distributions of Impulse Response Functions and Forecast Error Variance Decompositions of Vector Autoregressive Models0.51121100%
9Acemoglu, Daron and Ozdaglar, Asuman and Tahbaz-Salehi, Alireza (2015) Systemic Risk and Stability in Financial Networks0.40511100%
10Acharya, Viral V. and Pedersen, Lasse H. and Philippon, Thomas and R… (2016) Measuring Systemic Risk0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 30 scored citations.