IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finana/v97y2025ics1057521924007981.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Non-stationary financial risk factors and macroeconomic vulnerability for the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Varga, Katalin
  • Szendrei, Tibor

Abstract

Tracking the build-up of financial vulnerabilities is a key component of financial stability policy. Due to the complexity of the financial system, this task is daunting, and there have been several proposals on how to manage this goal. One popular way is through the creation of indices that act as a signal for the policy maker. While factor modelling in finance and economics has a rich history, most of the applications tend to focus on stationary factors. Nevertheless, financial stress can exhibit a high degree of inertia, which could be better captured by non-stationary factors. To this end, we advocate moving away from the stationary paradigm. In this paper we outline how to select and estimate the correct number of factors in the presence of non-stationary data. In doing so we create a financial stress index for the UK financial market, whose performance we compare to other popular financial stress indices. In a growth-at-risk and a connectedness exercise we show that the proposed method yields better performance at the short forecast horizons, which is of key interest for policy makers.

Suggested Citation

  • Varga, Katalin & Szendrei, Tibor, 2025. "Non-stationary financial risk factors and macroeconomic vulnerability for the UK," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:97:y:2025:i:c:s1057521924007981
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103866
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521924007981
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103866?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ricardo J. Caballero & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2008. "Collective Risk Management in a Flight to Quality Episode," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2195-2230, October.
    2. Castle, Jennifer L. & Doornik, Jurgen A. & Hendry, David F., 2021. "Modelling non-stationary ‘Big Data’," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1556-1575.
    3. Bouri, Elie & Cepni, Oguzhan & Gabauer, David & Gupta, Rangan, 2021. "Return connectedness across asset classes around the COVID-19 outbreak," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    4. Szendrei, Tibor & Varga, Katalin, 2023. "Revisiting vulnerable growth in the Euro Area: Identifying the role of financial conditions in the distribution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    5. J. Paul Elhorst & Marco Gross & Eugen Tereanu, 2021. "Cross‐Sectional Dependence And Spillovers In Space And Time: Where Spatial Econometrics And Global Var Models Meet," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 192-226, February.
    6. Diebold, Francis X. & Yılmaz, Kamil, 2014. "On the network topology of variance decompositions: Measuring the connectedness of financial firms," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(1), pages 119-134.
    7. Suarez, Javier, 2022. "Growth-at-risk and macroprudential policy design," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    8. Yali Cao & Yue Shao & Hongxia Zhang, 2022. "Study on early warning of E-commerce enterprise financial risk based on deep learning algorithm," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 21-36, March.
    9. Xu, Qifa & Xu, Mengnan & Jiang, Cuixia & Fu, Weizhong, 2023. "Mixed-frequency Growth-at-Risk with the MIDAS-QR method: Evidence from China," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(4).
    10. Goulet Coulombe, Philippe & Leroux, Maxime & Stevanovic, Dalibor & Surprenant, Stéphane, 2021. "Macroeconomic data transformations matter," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1338-1354.
    11. Frank Schorfheide & Dongho Song, 2024. "Real-Time Forecasting with a (Standard) Mixed-Frequency VAR During a Pandemic," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 20(4), pages 275-320, October.
    12. Aguilar, Omar & West, Mike, 2000. "Bayesian Dynamic Factor Models and Portfolio Allocation," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(3), pages 338-357, July.
    13. Huber, Florian & Koop, Gary & Onorante, Luca & Pfarrhofer, Michael & Schreiner, Josef, 2023. "Nowcasting in a pandemic using non-parametric mixed frequency VARs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 232(1), pages 52-69.
    14. Dario Caldara & Matteo Iacoviello, 2022. "Measuring Geopolitical Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(4), pages 1194-1225, April.
    15. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    16. Rossi, Barbara & Sekhposyan, Tatevik, 2019. "Alternative tests for correct specification of conditional predictive densities," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 208(2), pages 638-657.
    17. Garcia-de-Andoain, Carlos & Kremer, Manfred, 2017. "Beyond spreads: Measuring sovereign market stress in the euro area," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 153-156.
    18. Poncela, Pilar & Ruiz, Esther & Miranda, Karen, 2021. "Factor extraction using Kalman filter and smoothing: This is not just another survey," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1399-1425.
    19. Yan, Xiang & Wang, Xuefang & Liu, Sheng, 2023. "A U-shaped relationship between real financialization and financial risk: Evidence from a single threshold model," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    20. Illing, Mark & Liu, Ying, 2006. "Measuring financial stress in a developed country: An application to Canada," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 243-265, October.
    21. Søren Johansen, 2012. "The Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series Using Regression, Correlation and Cointegration," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 6(2), June.
    22. Gary Koop & Stuart McIntyre & James Mitchell & Aubrey Poon, 2023. "Reconciled Estimates of Monthly GDP in the United States," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 563-577, April.
    23. Francis X. Diebold & Kamil Yilmaz, 2009. "Measuring Financial Asset Return and Volatility Spillovers, with Application to Global Equity Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 158-171, January.
    24. Claudio Borio, 2014. "The financial cycle and macroeconomics: what have we learned and what are the policy implications?," Chapters, in: Ewald Nowotny & Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald & Peter Backé (ed.), Financial Cycles and the Real Economy, chapter 2, pages 10-35, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    25. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    26. Bonner, Clemens & Wedow, Michael & Budnik, Katarzyna & Koban, Anne & Kok, Christoffer & Laliotis, Dimitrios & Meller, Barbara & Melo, Ana Sofia & Moldovan, Iulia & Schmitz, Stefan & Couaillier, Cyril , 2018. "Systemic liquidity concept, measurement and macroprudential instruments," Occasional Paper Series 214, European Central Bank.
    27. Jiang, Liewen & Bondell, Howard D. & Wang, Huixia Judy, 2014. "Interquantile shrinkage and variable selection in quantile regression," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 208-219.
    28. Pesaran, H. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 1998. "Generalized impulse response analysis in linear multivariate models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 17-29, January.
    29. Tilmann Gneiting & Roopesh Ranjan, 2011. "Comparing Density Forecasts Using Threshold- and Quantile-Weighted Scoring Rules," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 411-422, July.
    30. Pena, Daniel & Poncela, Pilar, 2004. "Forecasting with nonstationary dynamic factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 291-321, April.
    31. Chavleishvili, Sulkhan & Fahr, Stephan & Kremer, Manfred & Manganelli, Simone & Schwaab, Bernd, 2021. "A novel risk management perspective for macroprudential policy," Research Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 87.
    32. Ferrara, Laurent & Mogliani, Matteo & Sahuc, Jean-Guillaume, 2022. "High-frequency monitoring of growth at risk," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 582-595.
    33. Borio, Claudio, 2014. "The financial cycle and macroeconomics: What have we learnt?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 182-198.
    34. Frank Schorfheide & Dongho Song, 2015. "Real-Time Forecasting With a Mixed-Frequency VAR," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 366-380, July.
    35. Craig S. Hakkio & William R. Keeton, 2009. "Financial stress: what is it, how can it be measured, and why does it matter?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 94(Q II), pages 5-50.
    36. Figueres, Juan Manuel & Jarociński, Marek, 2020. "Vulnerable growth in the euro area: Measuring the financial conditions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    37. Freixas, Xavier & Laeven, Luc & Peydró, José-Luis, 2015. "Systemic Risk, Crises, and Macroprudential Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262028697, December.
    38. Durbin, James & Koopman, Siem Jan, 2012. "Time Series Analysis by State Space Methods," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 2, number 9780199641178, Decembrie.
    39. Duprey, Thibaut & Klaus, Benjamin & Peltonen, Tuomas, 2017. "Dating systemic financial stress episodes in the EU countries," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 30-56.
    40. Koenker, Roger & Xiao, Zhijie, 2006. "Quantile Autoregression," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 101, pages 980-990, September.
    41. Detken, Carsten & Weeken, Olaf & Alessi, Lucia & Bonfim, Diana & Boucinha, Miguel & Castro, Christian & Frontczak, Sebastian & Giordana, Gaston & Giese, Julia & Wildmann, Nadya & Kakes, Jan & Klaus, B, 2014. "Operationalising the countercyclical capital buffer: indicator selection, threshold identification and calibration options," ESRB Occasional Paper Series 5, European Systemic Risk Board.
    42. Lang, Jan Hannes & Izzo, Cosimo & Fahr, Stephan & Ruzicka, Josef, 2019. "Anticipating the bust: a new cyclical systemic risk indicator to assess the likelihood and severity of financial crises," Occasional Paper Series 219, European Central Bank.
    43. Alvaro Escribano & Daniel Peña, 1994. "Cointegration And Common Factors," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(6), pages 577-586, November.
    44. Diebold, Francis X. & Yilmaz, Kamil, 2012. "Better to give than to receive: Predictive directional measurement of volatility spillovers," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 57-66.
    45. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    46. Nikolaos Antonakakis & Ioannis Chatziantoniou & David Gabauer, 2020. "Refined Measures of Dynamic Connectedness based on Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregressions," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-23, April.
    47. Engle, Robert F. & Campos-Martins, Susana, 2023. "What are the events that shake our world? Measuring and hedging global COVOL," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 221-242.
    48. Gneiting, Tilmann & Ranjan, Roopesh, 2011. "Comparing Density Forecasts Using Threshold- and Quantile-Weighted Scoring Rules," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(3), pages 411-422.
    49. Somnath Chatterjee & Ching‐Wai (Jeremy) Chiu & Thibaut Duprey & Sinem Hacıoğlu‐Hoke, 2022. "Systemic Financial Stress and Macroeconomic Amplifications in the United Kingdom," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(2), pages 380-400, April.
    50. Carsten Detken & Olaf Weeken & Lucia Alessi & Diana Bonfim & Miguel M. Boucinha & Christian Castro & Sebastian Frontczak & Gaston Giordana & Julia Giese & Nadya Jahn & Jan Kakes & Benjamin Klaus & Jan, 2014. "Operationalising the countercyclical capital buffer: indicator selection, threshold identification and calibration options," ESRB Occasional Paper Series 05, European Systemic Risk Board.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Szendrei, Tibor & Varga, Katalin, 2023. "Revisiting vulnerable growth in the Euro Area: Identifying the role of financial conditions in the distribution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    2. Chen, Huayi & Shi, Huai-Long & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2024. "Carbon volatility connectedness and the role of external uncertainties: Evidence from China," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    3. Szendrei, Tibor & Bhattacharjee, Arnab & Schaffer, Mark E, 2024. "Fused LASSO as Non-crossing Quantile Regression," IZA Discussion Papers 17149, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Lawrence, Babatunde & Obalade, Adefemi A. & Tita, Anthanasius F. & French, Joseph J., 2024. "Stock market connectedness during an energy crisis: Evidence from South Africa," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Hartwig, Benny & Meinerding, Christoph & Schüler, Yves S., 2021. "Identifying indicators of systemic risk," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    6. Tihana Skrinjaric, 2023. "Leading indicators of financial stress in Croatia: a regime switching approach," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 47(2), pages 205-232.
    7. Lang, Chunlin & Xu, Danyang & Corbet, Shaen & Hu, Yang & Goodell, John W., 2024. "Global financial risk and market connectedness: An empirical analysis of COVOL and major financial markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    8. Tibor Szendrei & Arnab Bhattacharjee & Mark E. Schaffer, 2024. "MIDAS-QR with 2-Dimensional Structure," Papers 2406.15157, arXiv.org.
    9. Shi, Huai-Long & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2022. "Factor volatility spillover and its implications on factor premia," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. Juncal Cunado & David Gabauer & Rangan Gupta, 2024. "Realized volatility spillovers between energy and metal markets: a time-varying connectedness approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    11. Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Gabauer, David & Stenfors, Alexis, 2020. "From CIP-deviations to a market for risk premia: A dynamic investigation of cross-currency basis swaps," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. Iacopini, Matteo & Poon, Aubrey & Rossini, Luca & Zhu, Dan, 2023. "Bayesian mixed-frequency quantile vector autoregression: Eliciting tail risks of monthly US GDP," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    13. Jozef Barunik & Mattia Bevilacqua & Radu Tunaru, 2022. "Asymmetric Network Connectedness of Fears," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1304-1316, November.
    14. Zaghum Umar & Oluwasegun Babatunde Adekoya & Mariya Gubareva & Sabri Boubaker, 2024. "Returns and volatility connectedness among the Eurozone equity markets," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 3103-3122, July.
    15. Tölö, Eero, 2020. "Predicting systemic financial crises with recurrent neural networks," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    16. Kamal, Javed Bin & Wohar, Mark & Kamal, Khaled Bin, 2022. "Do gold, oil, equities, and currencies hedge economic policy uncertainty and geopolitical risks during covid crisis?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Aharon, David Y. & Kizys, Renatas & Umar, Zaghum & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Did David win a battle or the war against Goliath? Dynamic return and volatility connectedness between the GameStop stock and the high short interest indices," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    18. Stenfors, Alexis & Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Gabauer, David, 2022. "Independent policy, dependent outcomes: A game of cross-country dominoes across European yield curves," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    19. Cotter, John & Hallam, Mark & Yilmaz, Kamil, 2023. "Macro-financial spillovers," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    20. Tibor Szendrei & Katalin Varga, 2020. "FISS - A Factor-based Index of Systemic Stress in the Financial System," Russian Journal of Money and Finance, Bank of Russia, vol. 79(1), pages 3-34, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:97:y:2025:i:c:s1057521924007981. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620166 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.