We construct daily market-based measures of distance to default for large U.S. financial institutions since 1973. These measures have significant predictive power for institution bankruptcy more than one year in advance. We aggregate the distances to default across institutions to provide an index of the overall health of the financial-services industry. We show that deteriorations in this Financial Institution Health Index are associated with tighter lending standards and higher interest rates on bank loans and precede declines in employment and industrial production. We argue that this points to the condition of financial institutions as an independent source of macroeconomic variability, distinct from traditional accelerator mechanisms.
This paper explores the relationship between the health of the financial sector and the rest of the economy. We develop an indicator of financial sector health using a distance-to-default measure based on a Merton-style option pricing model. Our measure spans over three decades and appears to capture periods when financial sector institutions were strong and when they were weak. We then use vector autoregressions to assess whether our indicator of financial-sector health affects the real economy, in particular non-residential investment. The results indicate that our measure has a considerable impact. Moreover, we find that this financial channel amplifies changes in investment resulting from shocks to non-financial firm profitability.
This paper describes the construction of a financial stress index (FSI). Our index incorporates the level, volatility and comovement of a variety of financial series, rather than a single dimension of the data. To determine which time periods are ones of notable financial stress and thus the relevant ones for determining the role of the level, volatility and comovement of our financial series, we use actions taken by policymakers. In addition to describing the construction of our FSI, we discuss issues relevant to the general construction of stress indexes such as how an FSI differs from a financial conditions index, the challenges of combining different financial series into a single measure and the role historical experience plays in index construction.
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