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CRISK: Measuring the Climate Risk Exposure of the Financial System

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Abstract

We develop a market-based methodology to assess banks’ resilience to climate-related risks and study the climate-related risk exposure of large global banks. We introduce a new measure, CRISK, which is the expected capital shortfall of a bank in a climate stress scenario. To estimate CRISK, we construct climate risk factors and dynamically measure banks’ stock return sensitivity (that is, climate beta) to the climate risk factor. We validate the climate risk factor empirically and the climate beta estimates by using granular data on large U.S. banks’ loan portfolios. The measure is useful in quantifying banks’ climaterelated risk exposure through the market risk and the credit risk channels.

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  • Richard Berner & Robert Engle & Hyeyoon Jung, 2021. "CRISK: Measuring the Climate Risk Exposure of the Financial System," Staff Reports 977, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:93069
    Note: Revised March 2025. Previous title: “Climate Stress Testing”
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    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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